Thursday, January 25, 2007

Libby Trial: Cheney's Office Takes the Stand


From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

On Thursday, the Vice President's office was on the stand in the Scooter Libby trial-sort of. The fourth witness to be called by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was Cathie Martin, who during the CIA leak scandal, was Dick Cheney's senior public affairs aide. Currently deputy director of communications and planning at the White House, Martin was a poised and confident witness; she was hardly looking to help the prosecution nail her former colleague. Yet she testified that she had told Libby that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA weeks before that information was leaked--reinforcing Fitzgerald's accusation that Libby lied to the FBI and a grand jury when he claimed that he possessed no direct knowledge of Valerie Wilson and her CIA employment at the time of the leak.

Martin described a conversation she had with William Harlow, the CIA public affairs chief, and though she had no direct recollection of when this phone call happened, she noted it likely occurred around June 11, 2003. At that time, Walter Pincus of The Washington Post was asking Vice President Cheney's office whether it had been involved in former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger (which had been cited in a May 6 New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof that did not name Wilson). Martin testified that as the result of a call between Scooter Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, and a CIA official (probably Robert Grenier, an earlier witness in the trial), she had been put in contact with Harlow.

During her conversation with Harlow, Martin testified, she asked him what the CIA knew about the trip to Niger taken by the then-unnamed ambassador. Harlow told her the former diplomat was Joseph Wilson and revealed that his wife worked at the CIA. Later that same day, in the vice president's office, she shared with Cheney and Libby what Harlow had told her, including the information that Wilson's wife was employed at the CIA. How did Cheney or Libby respond to this? Fitzgerald asked Martin. "I don't remember any other specific response," she answered.

The significance of this? Fitzgerald had shown once again that Libby was making efforts to gather information on the Wilson trip when little was publicly known about it. As a result of this effort, he was told by Martin that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Ted Wells, a Libby lawyer, tried to depict Martin's report to Cheney and Libby as nothing but an easy-to-forget ten-second snippet. But Martin also testified that Libby was intensely engaged in a campaign to rebut Joseph Wilson's charge that the Bush administration had rigged the case for war by misrepresenting the prewar intelligence--and that Libby had even requested to see transcripts of cable news shows covering the controversy (particularly Chris Matthews' Hardball program). Consequently, a juror could well conclude that information regarding Valerie Wilson's CIA employment was important to Libby and registered with him.

Under cross-examination from Wells, Martin did say that in her many conversations with Libby and Cheney in June and July 2003 about the Wilson imbroglio, only once was Valerie Wilson mentioned--when she shared the information from Harlow with the vice president and his chief of staff.

Wells--and Martin--helped Libby on a different front. During her initial testimony, Fitzgerald asked her about a phone conversation between Libby and Matt Cooper of Time on July 12, 2003. Cooper has said that during this call Libby confirmed for him that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA. (That would be leaking classified information.) Libby has told investigators that all he said to Cooper was that he (Libby) had heard that other reporters were saying this about Valerie Wilson. Martin was a witness to Libby's side of the call. Did she, Fitzgerald asked, hear Libby tell Cooper that other journalists were talking about Valerie Wilson and her CIA connection? No, said Martin. That seemed a blow for the defense. But then Wells asked if she had received a phone call while Libby had been talking to Cooper. Yes, she replied. And that meant Martin had not overheard the entire Libby-Cooper conversation. Fitzgerald's blow was undone.

Earlier in the day, Wells explicitly previewed a defense attack that he had only previously hinted at. It came during an attempt to impeach the credibility of Craig Schmall, Libby's onetime CIA briefer, who testified on Wednesday that Libby had mentioned Joseph and Valerie Wilson during a June 14, 2003 briefing. Wells tried to persuade Judge Reggie Walton to allow him to read from a classified document the various matters that Schmall had briefed Libby about that day. Schmall (who briefed Libby and/or Cheney several times a week) had testified he could not recall any of the specifics of that particular briefing, and Wells wanted to suggest that this assertion was not believable. He then could argue that nothing Schmall had told the jury should be accepted--including Schmall's statement that he had written down a reference to Libby's remark about the Wilsons on that morning's briefing. (The page with the handwritten note was entered into evidence.)

Wells told the judge--with the jury out of the room--that he wanted to "paint a picture that [Schmall] should not be believed." But he was not out to discredit just one witness. He claimed that in this case "there is tension between the CIA and the White House and that there "are biases and motivations so that these witnesses from the CIA cannot be believed." In other words, the CIA was--and is--out to get Libby. The judge turned down his request to disclose the contents of the briefing.

Cathie Martin will be back on the stand on Monday. (For the duration of the trial, Fridays are days off.) After she is done, Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary, is scheduled to take the stand. According to Fitzgerald's opening argument, Fleischer leaked Valerie Wilson's CIA identity to NBC News' David Gregory--and did so after obtaining information on Valerie Wilson from both Libby and White House communications director Dan Bartlett. (Gregory did not report that information.) Neither Fleischer, Bartlett, nor Gregory have commented on this new disclosure. Fleischer--who demanded and received immunity from Fitzgerald--could be trouble for Libby and also the White House.

Posted by David Corn at January 25, 2007 06:04 PM

29 comments:

David B. Benson said...

David Corn --- Well stated, as usual!

Wish I could take Fridays off too. Judges have an easy life, eh? :-)

kathleen said...

David.. Libby threw sand in Fitzgerald's eyes and now the defense is throwing spaghetti on the walls.

What will they do next pour oil on the floors?

kathleen said...

Hagel is pounding the Bush administration...

Hagel On Cheney Remarks: ‘He Has So Little Faith In This Country To Say Something Like That’ »
Yesterday on CNN, Vice President Cheney told Wolf Blitzer that “the biggest threat” in the Iraq war right now is that the American public may not have the “stomach for the fight.”

Responding to Cheney’s comments, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) told PBS Newshour host Gwen Ifill that it’s astounding the Vice President so “underestimates the people of this country” and “has so little faith in this country to say something like that.” Watch it:


Hagel also suggested that Cheney talk to the families of the soldiers and tell them “that they don’t have the stomach.”

David B. Benson said...

Pound, pound, pound!

Better is impeach, impeach, impeach!

Anonymous said...

Kathleen, when do you leave for Washington DC? (Or maybe you're already there?) Is Saladin joining you?

Hey, what about those two elections' officials being convicted in Cahougya (sp?) county? Are people in Ohio talking about that much? Is it in the newspapers?

Looking forward to hearing about your trip to DC

kathleen said...

Thanks Micki I leave early Friday morning. Was hoping to be there this week to volunteer (they always need help). I take it Saladin was unable to make it. Hard to get to a march that far away.

It will be so interesting to see if the MSM does any better job in covering who is really there. They certainly did not in the run-up to the invasion.

Watch the networks and see who they interview and show footage of.

I will spend most of my time roaming and video and audio taping. The older vets are always my favorite. Looking into the eyes of older gents(older than me 54) who have been to war is always moving and these guys know what they are talking about (like Senator Webb the other night). No fluff. They know that the Bush administration has committed crimes sending soldiers into a "war of choice" based on lies.

I hope to see friends who lost one of their daughters on the United Flight (she was a stewardess) on 9/11. They have a website for their daughter "Sweet Alicia Titus". Johns recent holiday letter at the site is moving. They are a remarkable family!

Bev and John are working with Congressman Kucinich pushing for the Dept Of Peace. They led the New York march in Feb. of 2oo3 with other 9/11 families against the invasion. They led the human herd and are devoted to Peace issues. What an example they have set!


The website CAMERA is now almost completely focused on ripping Carter.

Saladin the response to Carter (last post) at Brandeis was encouraging!

Do folks know that there are seats at the Libby Trial for the peasants. The trial is at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse. 6th floor of the courthouse in Courtroom 16. Starts at 9;30 a.m. Mon_Thurs and of course I am sure one needs to get there as soon as the doors open and even then it may be impossible!

I will be going back over to Washington towards the middle of Feb to try to get in.

David B. Benson said...

Remember that Monday is National Call-in Day about Iraq. Let your Representative and Senators know what you think and feel.

As for me, troops out now. Let Iraq divide itself into three pieces if that's what the Iraqis want...

David B. Benson said...

Aha. The Republic of Georgia, with CIA cooperation, set up a sting to catch the Russian seller.

So nobody was buying, at least this lot...

kathleen said...

Have you seen John Stewarts coverage of the SOTU?

kathleen said...

David Benson have you read John Dean's last three peices on Impeachment at John Dean Findlaw?

kathleen said...

Later...

capt said...

"If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.": George Orwell - [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1950) British author

=
"There is no such thing as an achieved liberty: like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights to out." - Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U. S. Supreme Court Justice Source: American Bar Association Journal, 1953

===

Read this newsletter online http://tinyurl.com/dy6yy

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Hajji said...

Thanx, all for the prayers, good wishes for Grant and Co.

Jill told me Grant called her about 4am. (She's with her mom who's living with corticobasal degeneration in Durham, NC. Loooooong story, but one of great courage and great loss, funny thing is, sometimes you have to remind her to bitch at you! You grow to miss that.)

Anywhoo...they talked (on sat phone) for over an hour and a half!

Grant's getting really excited about getting back to the mundane things like beer, girls, beer, driving without worrying 'bout gettin' blowed up, football, baseball, beer and girls...(in EXACTLY that order.)

To hear a lilt in Jill's voice when talking about such things, especially considering all things, is like the song of the first bird of spring.

Her sacrifices for her children, for her patients (including those from NOLA and the FL hurricanes, who she STILL gets calls from!), for the goats, dog, donkey, me and now for her mother remind me of the the phrase from Mother Theresa...(I paraphrase)

"it is impossible for men to do great things...only small things with great love."

To love half as much as she does is to love greater than you'd've thunk possible.

G'nite.

-T

capt said...

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
Mother Teresa

Anonymous said...

Kathleen, good luck for your trip and for your audio- & videotaping. I hope you capture something that will prove to be a seminal event, planting the seeds for a positive later development. (We can dream, can't we?)

I have friends here in Bellingham who are making the trip; friends in Seattle, Everett, Olympia who are going. So people are going from far and wide. Good!

Kathleen, maybe you'll have a chance to talk with Rabbi Michael Lerner from Tikkun Magazine, who is one of the featured speakers, among many. I've met Rabbi Lerner and read his magazine -- he's amazing. If you have a chance to talk to him, make it happen!

Have a safe trip.

capt said...

Aide testifies Cheney helped effort to discredit Wilson



"I recall the vice president telling me to keep track of this story, and keep track of the commentators who were continuing to write on this story and talk about us," Martin testified. "We were paying attention to 'Hardball' with Chris Matthews because he had been talking about it a lot."

She described the reaction inside the administration as questions began to be raised, starting in May 2003. At that time, The New York Times described the Wilson trip to Niger but did not name him. The article said the administration had engaged in a "campaign of wholesale deceit" and suggested that Cheney was directly involved.

Martin said that Libby asked her to call the then-chief public affairs officer at the CIA, William Harlow, to find out about the trip by the then-mysterious former envoy.

"So I was saying, 'Who sent him? Who is this guy?' " Martin testified. "I remember Bill Harlow saying his name was Joe Wilson, he was a charge in Baghdad, and his wife works over here." Martin said she promptly went to see Cheney and Libby with the news.

Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. The same day he aired his concerns on the NBC program "Meet the Press." Almost immediately, Martin said she was huddling again with Cheney about how to respond to a surge in media inquiries.

"He dictated to me what he wanted to say," Martin said. The detailed response covered eight separate points including a reference to a sensitive intelligence community assessment. Martin testified that she was "not sure if I could use that point" because she believed at the time that the report was classified.

Later, she said she discussed with Cheney and Libby how she had learned from Harlow that two network reporters were writing stories about the case, and how Cheney ordered up Libby to call them personally, including one that he made from his private ante room outside of Cheney's office.

"I was aggravated that Scooter was calling the reporters, and that I wasn't," Martin said.

The trial is expected to resume Monday with testimony from former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Seems like Fitz has his ducks in a row.



capt

Gerald said...

Posters, I cannot get fired up about this Libby trial. America faces many problems besides a trial. My concern is America's voracious appetite for death, destruction, genocide, and human blood.

Decline of the West

Dear Posters:

On January 26, 2007 I was watching a program on Ontario Television that is called the Agenda.

The program started with the fact that we have been involved with the Middle East since 1776. Our country’s trade with that area was 20%. As our trade boats went to the area, pirates would hijack the boats and so America needed a navy to protect these trade boats.

Ever since 1819 the Puritans talked about a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. These were the first thoughts of an Israeli state and the partition of Palestine.

Andrew Jackson was the first president to send arms to the Middle East. President Wilson chose not to protect the Armenians and 1.5 Armenians were slaughtered. Armenia was a predominately Christian state.

The American Zionist Movement started by a woman whose name I cannot recall. The impetus for the American Zionist Movement took hold under Justice Brandeis.

In 1933 America worked out an agreement with a Mr. Saud. The Saud family was very influential in the Middle East. The Saud family found the oil and from that time forward America had an interest in the Middle East to protect her oil interests. If you recall Prescott Bush was deeply involved with the Saud family since 1933 and probably before 1933.

President Truman was the first president to recognize Israel after WW II.

Why is America supportive of Israel? Religion plays a role in supporting Israel. We can go back to the Puritans in 1819 as an example. America also seems to pay attention to the Israeli lobbyists.

A power play in the Middle East, such as attacking Iran will not help to bring peace in the Middle East.

History is one damn thing after another. Winston Churchill

The Decline of the West may have started with Iran taking over our hostages in 1979. When an empire starts to decline like the American empire there is great violence by the declining empire. Nationalism can destroy an empire, such as America right or wrong. America’s immigration issue must have an organized plan. A disorganized plan will create ongoing conflicts and violence.

America has a terrible record for nation building. Why is America on the decline? There are three reasons. America has huge economic deficits, a population deficit (only 6% of the world population is American), and an attention deficit. America has forgotten that a nation cannot become a democracy after 4 or 5 years. America will have to be in the Middle East for at least 50 plus years and probably be involved in many wars, murders, and war crimes.

America will fight these endless wars in order to prevent another Islamic Empire that dates back 1400 or 1500 years. America and Israel will have to create death, destruction, and genocide in order to stop an Islamic Empire. Endless killing and maiming will take place in the Middle East.

America has another problem that will make it necessary for a nuclear holocaust in Asia. America will want to stop the Asian Revival and the great strides that China has been making. America will not spread democracy because America’s plan for her empire from total decline will be death, destruction, and the genocide of China.

Since America has a population deficit, America will let more and more immigrants come into the country. Possibly another 300 or 400 million immigrants will be necessary to ease the population deficit. This increase in the American population will make it necessary to reinstate the military draft to fight in Nazi America’s endless wars. America in order to prevent the growth of an Islamic Empire and China’s growing influence in the world a nuclear holocaust will be necessary. Our 700 plus military bases around the world will knock out the Islamic Empire and China with great collateral damage to the human population.

The PNAC’s desire for planet, Earth, to sustain only a population of 500 million people will be realized.

I have also given you my interpretation of what seems Nazi America’s secret plan in maintaining her empire.

Sincerely,

Gerald

capt said...

Is There A Kosher Way to Criticize the Israel Lobby?



Wes Clark is the latest to be caught up in the rigged rules for discussing Israel-related issues in America.


Retired General Wesley Clark is, like me, concerned that the Bush administration is going to launch a war with Iran. Arianna Huffington spoke to him in early January and asked why he was so worried the administration was headed in this direction. According to Huffington's January 4 recounting of Clark's thoughts, he said this: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."

This, of course, is true. I'm Jewish and I don't think the United States should bomb Iran, but Thursday night I was talking to a Jewish friend and she does think the United States should bomb Iran. The Jewish community, in short, is divided on the issue. It's also true that most major American Jewish organizations cater to the views of extremely wealthy major donors whose political views are well to the right of the bulk of American Jews, one of the most liberal ethnic groups in the country. Furthermore, it's true that major Jewish organizations are trying to push the country into war. And, last, it's true that if you read the Israeli press you'll see that right-wing Israeli politicians are anticipating a military confrontation with Iran. (For example, here's an article about the timing of the selection of a new top dog in the Israeli Defense Forces; Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted as saying that the new leader "will have to straighten the army out, rebuild Israel's deterrence and prepare the defenses against threats, first and foremost, against Iran.")

Everything Clark said, in short, is true. What's more, everybody knows it's true. The worst that can truthfully be said about Clark is that he expressed himself in a slightly odd way. This, it seems clear, he did because it's a sensitive issue and he worried that if he spoke plainly he'd be accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism. So he spoke unclearly and, for his trouble, got ... accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I don't think the calls of "anti-Semitism" are anything more than a way for some people to de-rail or dismiss things with which they do not agree.

If you want to hear some very real anti-Semitism one need only look at the American neo-Nazis and white supremacists. So more David Duke and less Wes.



capt

Saladin said...

Kathleen, I tried to make arrangements to make it to DC. Unfortunately this is very bad timing for me. My husband has been having serious back problems and is facing another surgery, he had a double surgery last year that never quite healed properly. He expressed interest in attending, but didn't think the long flight, etc. would be a good idea. This is also our busiest time of year work wise, we are supposed to be in Tucson for the annual gem show but that also requires a 16 hour round trip in the car which is torture for him, so we probably won't make that either. Just more shit happening. I will be eagerly awaiting your report when you return. I may very well be playing nursemaid again.

Hajji said...

This, in no way, can be good...

Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq

(keeping in mind Bob Novak's use of the word "operative")
____________________


By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 26, 2007; Page A01

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country's nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq.

"There were no costs for the Iranians," said one senior administration official. "They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back."

Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said.

But, for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq "has been quite striking."

"Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism," Hayden said.

The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran's commitment to its nuclear efforts. Tehran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, but the United States and other nations say it is aimed at developing weapons.

The administration's plans contain five "theaters of interest," as one senior official put it, with military, intelligence, political and diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.

The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the "Blue Game Matrix" -- a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran's funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.

In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though U.S. forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.

MORE
________________

Apparently the countdown to the False-Flag incident is well under way. How many more Iranians will be kidnapped, tortured and killed before they get someone to say that Ahmeinijad alread HAS a nuke and it's in a container bound for San Francisco Bay?

"We had to keep waterboarding them to death until we got one to finally cough up the TRUTH we wanted to hear so badly!"

-official White Horse Souse.

plus de choses change le plus ils restent pareil

capt said...

Pour cirer poétique et en français!

How librul can you get?

HA!


capt

capt said...

'Tank girl' army accused of torture



Guardian and Human Rights Watch find evidence of abuse by Iranian revolutionaries under US protection


A bizarre revolutionary army supported by British politicians who want more "regime change" in the Middle East, has been accused of torture and brainwashing.

Evidence obtained by the Guardian backs a report by Human Rights Watch. This makes detailed accusations of abuse, including deaths under interrogation, against the "People's Mujahideen" of Iran (MKO).

The Mujahideen are a 4000-strong anti-Iranian dissident army, currently under US protection in a camp in Iraq. They have a vociferous public relations campaign in Britain and the backing of some Washington neo-conservatives.

The group, known as the "tank girls" because of the preponderance of women in its ranks, has also won the support of the Daily Telegraph, which wants it to help overthrow the mullahs in Tehran. It says in a leader: "We should back the main resistance group, the People's Mujahideen ... Give them the tools and they will finish the job".

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

We (the US) have these Mujahideen under our protection (read: control) - they have Iranian military uniforms and garb and they strike inside Iran. I have read where the Iranian government calls the "tank girls" terrorists.

I guess it is an "in the eye of the beholder" thing.



capt

Saladin said...

American Politicos Campaign for Likudnik Total War Against the Palestinians

Kurt Nimmo
Friday, January 26, 2007

It’s a headline that speaks volumes: “U.S. Presidential Hopefuls Campaigning in Israel.” Not in the Granite State, New Hampshire, but Israel. “Three Presidential hopefuls appeared in Israel or spoke through a satellite link this week at the Herzliya Conference in an effort to show their support for Israel,” reports Arutz Sheva. As should be expected, the “campaign” issue is Iran, not American domestic politics, basically an irrelevancy.

“Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney called for more severe sanctions on Iran and added that a military strike should be considered” and John McCain, the Manchurian candidate for AIPAC, “said through a satellite link that he backs ties between Israel and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)” and declared a “friendly democracy under siege should be closer partners to the world’s most successful security alliance,” never mind, back when I was in grade school, NATO revolved around Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty, stating “that an armed attack against one or more [parties] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” But then, when you think about it, since the rulers of Israel are of European stock, it very well may make sense this “democracy”—that is, a “democracy” jus sanguinis, i.e., for Jews only—join NATO.

As should be expected, John Edwards demonstrated the classical conflicts of a Democrat, wanting to please all, but coming down decidedly on the side of the Likudites. “Democrat John Edwards of North Carolina called for tougher sanctions but also backed dialogue with Tehran. ‘I support being tough, but I think it’s a mistake strategically and ideologically not to engage them on this issue,’ he explained.” In short, Mr. Edwards desires to talk with the Iranians before bombing them, whereas the neocons simply want to bomb them without the necessity of “dialogue,” that is dictating terms in Israel’s favor.

Meanwhile, as America’s political candidates kiss the Zionist hem, Israel is working overtime on the Bomb Iran master plan. “Israel is launching a campaign to isolate Iran economically and to soften up world opinion for the option of a military strike aimed at crippling or delaying Tehran’s uranium enrichment program,” reports the Guardian, predictably emphasizing the neocon fantasy that feverish Iranian scientists are working around the clock underground on the Shia Nuke to be used in some fantastic and suicidal Armageddon scenario against Israel, never mind both the CIA and the IAEA have determined there is no evidence of such nefarious atomic building behavior.

In addition to the standard round of arm twisting of corporations into not doing business with Iran, “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be pursued in international courts for calling the Holocaust a myth, and saying Israel should be wiped off the map. The case will be launched under the 1948 UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, which outlaws ‘direct and public incitement to genocide,’” an absurdity, to say the least, as declaring the Holocaust is a myth is hardly the same as rounding people up and feeding them into gas chambers and ovens.

But then, of course, in certain parts of the world, for instance in Germany, where Ernst Zündel wastes away in prison, disagreeing with the official historical orthodoxy—in other words, daring the exercise free speech, the natural right of every human on the planet—is a punishable crime. As for Ahmadinejad declaring Israel should be “wiped off the map,” this is an easily demonstrated and particularly vile ruse dreamed up by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Zionist disinfo operation run by Yigal Carmon, an Israeli who worked for the IDF/Intelligence Branch from 1968 to 1988. MEMRI deliberately mistranslated Ahmadinejad and now supposedly respectable newspapers such as the Guardian are rehashing the propaganda as verified truth.

Finally, as the cardboard cut-out presidential wannabes trek to Israel for acceptance, bending over backwards to parrot the Likudnik line on Iran, we turn to Ilan Pappe, an Israeli-born professor at Haifa University. Pappe was recently interviewed by Today’s Zaman, a Turkish web site. Going after Iran, Pappe insists, has nothing to do with nukes. Instead, it has everything to do with the Zionist project, i.e., the task of dispossessing Palestinians of their land and inflicting privation upon them.

“Israel has its own plan for imposing its will and this is in Palestine,” Pappe told Ali Cimen. “It wishes unilaterally to annex large parts of the areas it occupied in 1967 and to imprison the Palestinians in small Bantustans and by that destroy the Palestine will and aspirations. Only two movements, Hezbollah and Hamas, and only two states, Syria and Iran, oppose this scheme. Israel sees the present American administration and mood as providing a rare window of opportunity to use its military might for destroying the only forces willing to resist its policies in Palestine.”
==========
Have they ALL gone off the deep end? Who exacty are the anti-semites here?? And who is not only capable of, but also chomping at the bit to create Holocaust #2? The Iranian president is right, all these neocon warmongerers need to become a page of history, which is what he ACTUALLY said!

capt said...

Today's Neo-Nazis Have No Respect For Tradition



[…]

Of course, that was back when being a neo-Nazi still meant something. Evidently, the neo-Nazis of today think that all you need to do to keep the fires of white nationalism burning is to carve a swastika on your chest or strap an armband around the sleeve of a dingy plaid-flannel shirt.

Breaking bottles, overturning garbage cans, spray-painting racial slurs, cranking out hour after mind-numbing hour of that ridiculous punk-rock music—you call that neo-Nazism? When we wanted to relax after a long day of marching in downtown Skokie, we sang good patriotic German anthems like the "Horst Wessel Song."

And the way these kids fight! Where's the skill? Sure, in the glory days of the 1930s, the Nazis doled out their fair share of beatings against the defenseless. But they did it with a little thing called "class." Watching these kids throw drunken punches and thrash around like netted trout in their mosh pits, I'd be shocked if more than three of them could even goose-step in a straight line. They couldn't make a train run on time if their lives depended on it, let alone conceive the V-2 rocket or Zyklon B.

I'll tell you one other thing—we weren't parked on our butts typing away on the Internet all day in some dank room surrounded by empty beer cans. We were at our remote Montana compounds, enjoying the rugged outdoors. We went on nature hikes, built huge bonfires, and held daily target practice so we'd be ready for the coming race war. All these nerds today want to do is make Web videos decrying the Zionist agenda. That reminds me—if you're going to appear online, the least you can do is shave. And if you must tattoo an eagle with an iron cross in its talons across your back, put on a shirt, for crying out loud. Tattoos aren't anything to brag about. Tattoos are for inking numbers on the forearms of Jews.

I also hear that when these kids are in prison, they spend their time sodomizing each other. Why, when we were in prison, we took advantage of our extra time to write manifestos and memorize The Turner Diaries. Buggery was the furthest thing from our mind—we saved our essence for propagating the white race when we got out.

I suppose this new generation will probably call me an old geezer, just because I still believe in putting on a tie before giving the Hitler salute. But damn it, if we can't live up to the values that made Nazism great, we might as well just not have any neo-Nazi movement at all.


More HERE

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Speaking of neo-Nazis?


capt

Saladin said...

Capt, there seems to be quite a variety of "neo-nazis" today. But the fools carving swastikas in their arms aren't the ones that worry me the most, it's the ones screaming for nuclear genocide against the Arab and semitic people of the middle east. They can actually do serious harm, and seem to have lot's of support.

capt said...

How E-Voting Threatens Democracy



So one day on a whim, after completing her publicity calls, Harris typed the words "stock ownership" and the name Election Systems & Software into a search engine and pulled up a slew of articles. Reading the oldest ones first because that's where companies "give information that they haven't yet thought to hide," she uncovered some startling facts.

Up until 1995, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel had been chairman of ES&S (then called American Information Systems) before quitting the company in March of that year two weeks before launching his Senate bid. ES&S, based in Omaha, Nebraska, manufactured the only voting machines used in the state in his election the following year. According to Neil Erickson, Nebraska's deputy secretary of state for elections, the machines counted 85 percent of votes in Hagel's race; the remaining votes were counted by hand.

Hagel, a first-time candidate who had lived out of the state for 20 years, came from behind to win two major upsets in that election: first in the primary race against a fellow Republican, then in the general race against Democrat Ben Nelson, the state's popular former governor. Nelson began the race with a 65 percent to 18 percent lead in the polls, but Hagel won with 56 percent of the vote, becoming the state's first Republican senator since 1972.

Now it was October 2002. Hagel was up for re-election, and Harris discovered that the senator still owned a financial stake in his former firm. Hagel held investments worth between $1 million and $5 million in the McCarthy Group. (Hagel won't reveal the exact size of his investment in the asset-management firm.) The McCarthy Group owns about 25 percent of ES&S, according to Hagel's chief of staff, Lou Ann Linehan. She estimated that Hagel's stake in ES&S amounts to about 1.5 percent.

More HERE

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Don't fall for the Hagel bandwagon. He is the original evote guy and I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.

I think all critical thinkers should always be very wary of these lying politicians (Dem or GOP). The worst of them will tell you what you want to hear, that is the easy end of politics. You cannot divorce these creeps from their personal histories as their spots never change, just the tone and content of their pathetic lies.

Barring some unforseen event I am more likely to vote for HRC than Hagel. FWTIW.


capt

capt said...

Saladin,

I might seem to be messing with the dial-ups - I have been posting from "The Onion" and should put a little satire disclaimer on those posts.

Never intended to mislead. All apologies to all readers. I know clicking through all the links can be cumbersome for slower connections. I did not mean to make that a penalty or anything. I will disclose the satire posts as such FNA.



capt

capt said...

Seriously, on Hagel - If I am not mistaken he still has family members (brother?) that are senior management at ES&S, Diebold or Sequoia.

Sure he is sounding anti-war but I predict he will serve the same masters as Bunnypants if ever elected.

Energy oligarchs own the GOP. Enron was a major player for a reason. If not for the accounting scandal Ken Lay would have been Sec. of Energy.

Consider those possibilities.


capt

capt said...

New thread!