Let me just say that strange things are afoot at Langley. You get very contradictory information depending on who you talk to. Maybe Goss will be able to change that.
I don't have to give you roughly, because I can get precise figures out of iTunes. Out of 14,168 tracks, 192 are from the iTunes music store. The others are rips from CD's in the attic. (Used CD stores are cool.)
"Contained" my ass. Did you read what I wrote? All the examples I cited, from the bankrolling of terrorism to giving safe harbor to Abu Abbas, happened during the 1990s and 2000s. And these are not the only examples, not by a long shot.
the sanctions were working
"Working" my ass. The sanctions-- more specifically, oil-for-food--earned Saddam $10 BILLION over the seven years the program was in place. Where do you think that money went? Hint: I already told you that Saddam was bankrolling terrorism.
It's estimated that the total of all the illegal oil voucher trading will come to nearly a billion dollars when it's all said and done. That's a billion dollars that went, primarily, into the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats at the UN.
the inspections would have worked if they had been allowed to continue
"Would have" my ass. The key point here, if you'll recall, is that it was Saddam who refused to cooperate with the inspection process. Talking about what might have happened if Saddam had been cooperative is kind of a waste of breath, isn't it?
Now our military is stretched to the breaking point
"Breaking point" my ass. Our military didn't break at Pearl, it didn't break at the Argonne, it didn't break at Inchon. The purpose of a standing army is to go off and fight wars, you know? The fact that they're fighting a war is not a reason to be concerned.
Half a trillion dollar deficits are going to bankrupt the country
"Bankrupt" my ass. The deficit as a percentage of GDP is only 1.9%. How much of a fraction of your personal income goes to your mortgage? How big is your business's debt as a fraction of gross revenues?
The deficit is big in absolute dollars, yes. But it's very small compared to the size of the economy.
Who's going to pay for this diversion from the War On Terrorism?
"Diversion" my ass. Please explain to me how taking out the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism and one of the world's last remaining rogue states is a "diversion from the war on terrorism." Isn't that kinda like saying that invading France was a "diversion" from the war against Japan?
This administration is the worst thing that has happened to The United States of America, ever.
I like the way you took the extra trouble to make that a bullet point. If you're gonna crazy up the place, be sure to do it with bullet points. Makes it look cooler.
First of all, "lied?" I'm so fucking sick of that word being thrown around. I know that there are some people out there who are just so consumed by hate that they refuse to think. I know this, you know this, everybody knows this. But do there have to be so many of them?
Did we invade Iraq over aluminum tubes? No, no we did not. People who fixate on aluminum tubes or yellowcake or bioweapons trailers or any other single aspect of the situation are like Johnny Cochrane pulling the ridiculous and phenomenally successful glove defense: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
Guys, we didn't go to war over one thing. We didn't go to war over a single breach of a treaty or a single act of terrorism or a single anything at all. We went to war because the sum of the available facts and inferences led to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a threat that we could no longer tolerate.
Is that too hard for you to wrap your heads around? Is that too complicated for you? Fine, let me put it in the simplest way I know. The very simplest. Ready? Here it is:
We invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had close ties to all sorts of international terrorist organizations and active weapons programs that either already had or would soon give him weapons that, if used in a terrorist attack, would result in devastation on a scale that has only ever been associated with total war.
I'm really sorry that it's not any simpler than that. I'll try to break it down for you.
1. Saddam Hussein was a terrorist. This is a partial list of terrorist acts that Saddam was personally involved with. It is not a complete list. Do not look at this list and go "is that all?" because it isn't.
a. Up until the very week before the invasion, Saddam was making large cash payments to the families of Hamas terrorists. He wasn't even trying to hide it. The presentations of the checks was shown on Iraqi state-run television like Saddam was fucking Ed McMahon.
b. Saddam used the Iraqi diplomatic corps to pass messages back and forth to Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist terror group that operates in and around the Philippines.
c. After Tunisia expelled terrorist Abu Abbas over the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, Saddam gave him safe haven in Iraq. Abu Abbas was captured outside Baghdad last year.
d. After the defeat of the Taliban and the destruction of al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, members of al-Qaida relocated to Iraq and set up shop in the mountains south of Kirkuk. One of these was Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was known to have spent a lot of time at al-Qaida camps in 2000 and 2001.
e. Sometime in the 1990s --we do not know precisely when--Saddam gave terrorist Abu Nidal permission to enter and leave Iraq at will, including setting him up with a Baghdad safehouse. Ironically, it was Saddam who ordered Abu Nidal's execution in 2002. Why? Because he refused to train the al-Qaida terrorists who set up shop inside Iraq in early 2002.
The list just goes on and fucking on. Saddam Hussein was a terrorist himself, a friend of terrorists, a supporter of terrorists. That alone is enough to make all non-head-up-asses Americans really fucking nervous, because of the whole thing with that chunk of real estate in lower Manhattan that's not there any more.
But that's not all there was, you see. What really took it from "we're nervous" to "this can't be allowed to continue" was Saddam's weapons programs. His chemical program is thoroughly documented. His nuclear program is thoroughly documented. His biological program is thoroughly documented. His ballistic missile program is thoroughly documented. His UAV and drone programs are thoroughly documented. These things aren't even in dispute. Nobody's suggesting that Saddam wasn't actively seeking weapons of mass destruction.
What people are saying is that he didn't actually have weapons of m
"We" do nothing of the sort. Practically speaking, the only thing you can do with a family member's DNA is rule an identification out. Hardly ever can you confirm one. Especially in this case, since there are literally thousands of people alive today who share bin Laden's paternal grandmother's mitochondrial DNA. The old sheikh was prolific, let's put it that way.
When the time came to identify human remains recovered from Ground Zero, families of the victims were asked to provide hairbrushes, toothbrushes, pillowcases, anything that might yield up a DNA sample. Some mtDNA testing was done, but it was largely unsuccessful at identifying specific remains. In only a few cases did mtDNA testing yield results that were sufficiently conclusive to call it a match.
What happenes to the election of a terrorist attack takes out George W?
That's not so much a conspiracy theory as it is high school civics class.
If the president dies -- including by assassination -- the vice president succeeds him. That's been a part of the system since day one, and it's been put to the test too many times.
The election is a separate question. If a presidential candidate dies after the nominating convention but before the election, that candidate's name remains on the ballot. If that candidate --now deceased --wins the election, the 20th amendment kicks in, which says that the vice president elect becomes president if the president elect dies before the inauguration.
This is also true if the president elect dies after winning the election but before being inaugurated.
And does anyone think that he hasn't already considered the possibility and planned for it?
Yes, it certainly has been...by the framers of the Constitution of the United States and by the authors of the 20th amendment which went into effect in 1933, and also by the authors of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.
Osama bin Laden, contrary to rumor, never made it out of Tora Bora. I had the chance to interview some of the SF soldiers who were there --there were about two dozen of them. Everything that moved got bombed. Everything that had a heat signature got bombed. Everything that set off the interferometers got bombed. Everything that didn't move or have a heat signature or set off the interferometers got bombed. The area was enclosed with a hard perimeter, meaning that some human being somewhere had real-time eyeballs on every square foot of that perimeter during the entire operation, either from the ground or from the air via loitering aircraft or Predators. Nobody got out.
When the troops went in to clear the caves, they didn't find bodies. They didn't even find pieces of bodies. They found fragments. A piece of jawbone with a molar in it, a fingertip, a scrap of skin with some hair attached. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying.
The idea that Osama bin Laden and his cadre just slipped out the back door with a vehicle and enough supplies to get them out of the mountains and into Pakistan is laughable in the extreme.
Why does the administration not mention this? Well, they have, indirectly, but why not come right out and say so? The reason there wasn't a screaming press release and banner headlines the next day is that we have no DNA from Osama bin Laden so there's no way for us to positively identify any of the human remains recovered as being from him. Even if we ruled out all the remains recovered, that still wouldn't be conclusive because lots and lots of men were essentially pulverized during the bombing, leaving nothing large enough to recover.
So because we can't conclusively prove that we got him, we have to concede the possibility that he might have clicked his heels together and said "there's no place like Islamabad." It's im-fucking-possible...but it's still possible. You know what I mean?
So instead we go with indirect evidence. Has Osama bin Laden been seen since December 2001? No. Has he been heard? No. (There were some audiotapes. Some were obviously older than 12/01. Some were recorded by persons other than bin Laden. None were both contemporaneous and genuine.) Has he communicated in any way that we could intercept? No, and we can intercept anything from smoke signals to a whisper in a Jakarta nightclub. Has he given any orders, participated in any summits, done --in short --any of the things he did regularly prior to 12/01? No.
He has, in other words, disappeared from the face of the earth. For nearly three years. Which, if you know about bin Laden's personality, is something that he would have a very hard time accomplishing if he were still corporeal and animate.
The biggest problem, you idiot, is that the image you're planning on running off on your printer is 72 dpi. Might want to spare a thought for that before you plan your big heist from the Crane and Co. warehouse.
The Electoral College is an historical, anti-democratic and racist anachronism
Oooh, you lost me at "I'm a colossal dumbass." People who use the word "racist" when there is absolutely no racial argument to be made whatsoever--not even an obviously specious one--are not worth our time or attention.
I have absolutely no reason to believe anything you said about "summarily deleted," but assuming the rest of your account is true...what the fuck were you thinking? Are you just a dumbass, or are you actually such a frothing partisan that you thought that question was reasonable? What possible purpose could you have had for posting something like that? Other that, as they say, to troll?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
The most convenient part of.Mac for me is the ability to drop a file onto my iDisk on one of my Macs and then be able to view or download it on any Internet-connected computer via an http: URL. Very handy, very easy, very convenient.
Um. The laser did blind the copilot, temporarily. The only question is whether it was accidental or deliberate. It'd be quite easy to set up in an airport's landing pattern with a telescope; you're just a plane-spotter, right? Then zero in on the pilot and copilot and dazzle them. At the very least, you've created an in-air emergency situation and scared a hell of a lot of people. At "best," it's a fireball.
so far the majority of comments from the Bush crowd are complaining "I call BS! Soros is a liberal!"
Um, no. The outcry has been over the fact that George Soros is a well-documented dumbass with nothing constructive to add to the discussion, but he's been pimped here like the greatest political philosopher of our times.
If you don't like what he has to say, refute it!
Why waste time arguing about nonsense? This isn't a debating society where we argue for fun. This is just an Internet message board where "Soros is a tool" is as valid an opinion as any other.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me just say that strange things are afoot at Langley. You get very contradictory information depending on who you talk to. Maybe Goss will be able to change that.
I don't have to give you roughly, because I can get precise figures out of iTunes. Out of 14,168 tracks, 192 are from the iTunes music store. The others are rips from CD's in the attic. (Used CD stores are cool.)
There are none so fucking blind as those who will not see.
m 2 /18/philippines.iraq.ap/ . nidal/ e ws/2002/08/25/wnidal25.xml 9 88.htm q .centrifuge/ / iraq/ q .bio.scientist/ q .un.missiles/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.st
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/0
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/08/19/mideast
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/html/19
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/25/sprj.ir
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2002/fyi/news/07/31
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/27/sprj.ir
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/02/19/sprj.ir
Saddam was contained
"Contained" my ass. Did you read what I wrote? All the examples I cited, from the bankrolling of terrorism to giving safe harbor to Abu Abbas, happened during the 1990s and 2000s. And these are not the only examples, not by a long shot.
the sanctions were working
"Working" my ass. The sanctions-- more specifically, oil-for-food--earned Saddam $10 BILLION over the seven years the program was in place. Where do you think that money went? Hint: I already told you that Saddam was bankrolling terrorism.
It's estimated that the total of all the illegal oil voucher trading will come to nearly a billion dollars when it's all said and done. That's a billion dollars that went, primarily, into the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats at the UN.
the inspections would have worked if they had been allowed to continue
"Would have" my ass. The key point here, if you'll recall, is that it was Saddam who refused to cooperate with the inspection process. Talking about what might have happened if Saddam had been cooperative is kind of a waste of breath, isn't it?
Now our military is stretched to the breaking point
"Breaking point" my ass. Our military didn't break at Pearl, it didn't break at the Argonne, it didn't break at Inchon. The purpose of a standing army is to go off and fight wars, you know? The fact that they're fighting a war is not a reason to be concerned.
Half a trillion dollar deficits are going to bankrupt the country
"Bankrupt" my ass. The deficit as a percentage of GDP is only 1.9%. How much of a fraction of your personal income goes to your mortgage? How big is your business's debt as a fraction of gross revenues?
The deficit is big in absolute dollars, yes. But it's very small compared to the size of the economy.
Who's going to pay for this diversion from the War On Terrorism?
"Diversion" my ass. Please explain to me how taking out the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism and one of the world's last remaining rogue states is a "diversion from the war on terrorism." Isn't that kinda like saying that invading France was a "diversion" from the war against Japan?
This administration is the worst thing that has happened to The United States of America, ever.
I like the way you took the extra trouble to make that a bullet point. If you're gonna crazy up the place, be sure to do it with bullet points. Makes it look cooler.
Oh, it's absurd on so many levels.
First of all, "lied?" I'm so fucking sick of that word being thrown around. I know that there are some people out there who are just so consumed by hate that they refuse to think. I know this, you know this, everybody knows this. But do there have to be so many of them?
Did we invade Iraq over aluminum tubes? No, no we did not. People who fixate on aluminum tubes or yellowcake or bioweapons trailers or any other single aspect of the situation are like Johnny Cochrane pulling the ridiculous and phenomenally successful glove defense: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
Guys, we didn't go to war over one thing. We didn't go to war over a single breach of a treaty or a single act of terrorism or a single anything at all. We went to war because the sum of the available facts and inferences led to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a threat that we could no longer tolerate.
Is that too hard for you to wrap your heads around? Is that too complicated for you? Fine, let me put it in the simplest way I know. The very simplest. Ready? Here it is:
We invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had close ties to all sorts of international terrorist organizations and active weapons programs that either already had or would soon give him weapons that, if used in a terrorist attack, would result in devastation on a scale that has only ever been associated with total war.
I'm really sorry that it's not any simpler than that. I'll try to break it down for you.
1. Saddam Hussein was a terrorist. This is a partial list of terrorist acts that Saddam was personally involved with. It is not a complete list. Do not look at this list and go "is that all?" because it isn't.
a. Up until the very week before the invasion, Saddam was making large cash payments to the families of Hamas terrorists. He wasn't even trying to hide it. The presentations of the checks was shown on Iraqi state-run television like Saddam was fucking Ed McMahon.
b. Saddam used the Iraqi diplomatic corps to pass messages back and forth to Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist terror group that operates in and around the Philippines.
c. After Tunisia expelled terrorist Abu Abbas over the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, Saddam gave him safe haven in Iraq. Abu Abbas was captured outside Baghdad last year.
d. After the defeat of the Taliban and the destruction of al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, members of al-Qaida relocated to Iraq and set up shop in the mountains south of Kirkuk. One of these was Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was known to have spent a lot of time at al-Qaida camps in 2000 and 2001.
e. Sometime in the 1990s --we do not know precisely when--Saddam gave terrorist Abu Nidal permission to enter and leave Iraq at will, including setting him up with a Baghdad safehouse. Ironically, it was Saddam who ordered Abu Nidal's execution in 2002. Why? Because he refused to train the al-Qaida terrorists who set up shop inside Iraq in early 2002.
The list just goes on and fucking on. Saddam Hussein was a terrorist himself, a friend of terrorists, a supporter of terrorists. That alone is enough to make all non-head-up-asses Americans really fucking nervous, because of the whole thing with that chunk of real estate in lower Manhattan that's not there any more.
But that's not all there was, you see. What really took it from "we're nervous" to "this can't be allowed to continue" was Saddam's weapons programs. His chemical program is thoroughly documented. His nuclear program is thoroughly documented. His biological program is thoroughly documented. His ballistic missile program is thoroughly documented. His UAV and drone programs are thoroughly documented. These things aren't even in dispute. Nobody's suggesting that Saddam wasn't actively seeking weapons of mass destruction.
What people are saying is that he didn't actually have weapons of m
Ah. Excellent point. Don't know what I was thinking there. My mind wandered for a second.
Sorry, I must have been out sick the day they covered "it was only a little perjury" in law school.
I guess judging by the degree of froth pouring out of your mouth that pointing out that President Bush never lied would just be a waste of time.
"We" do nothing of the sort. Practically speaking, the only thing you can do with a family member's DNA is rule an identification out. Hardly ever can you confirm one. Especially in this case, since there are literally thousands of people alive today who share bin Laden's paternal grandmother's mitochondrial DNA. The old sheikh was prolific, let's put it that way.
When the time came to identify human remains recovered from Ground Zero, families of the victims were asked to provide hairbrushes, toothbrushes, pillowcases, anything that might yield up a DNA sample. Some mtDNA testing was done, but it was largely unsuccessful at identifying specific remains. In only a few cases did mtDNA testing yield results that were sufficiently conclusive to call it a match.
What happenes to the election of a terrorist attack takes out George W?
...by the framers of the Constitution of the United States and by the authors of the 20th amendment which went into effect in 1933, and also by the authors of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.
That's not so much a conspiracy theory as it is high school civics class.
If the president dies -- including by assassination -- the vice president succeeds him. That's been a part of the system since day one, and it's been put to the test too many times.
The election is a separate question. If a presidential candidate dies after the nominating convention but before the election, that candidate's name remains on the ballot. If that candidate --now deceased --wins the election, the 20th amendment kicks in, which says that the vice president elect becomes president if the president elect dies before the inauguration.
This is also true if the president elect dies after winning the election but before being inaugurated.
And does anyone think that he hasn't already considered the possibility and planned for it?
Yes, it certainly has been
And the sad part is, people will probably believe the lying sack
I have a question.
How come George W. Bush is a liar and a criminal, but Bill Clinton --a man who perjured himself, who actually committed a crime by lying --is not?
'Splain that for me, please. I don't get it.
Osama bin Laden, contrary to rumor, never made it out of Tora Bora. I had the chance to interview some of the SF soldiers who were there --there were about two dozen of them. Everything that moved got bombed. Everything that had a heat signature got bombed. Everything that set off the interferometers got bombed. Everything that didn't move or have a heat signature or set off the interferometers got bombed. The area was enclosed with a hard perimeter, meaning that some human being somewhere had real-time eyeballs on every square foot of that perimeter during the entire operation, either from the ground or from the air via loitering aircraft or Predators. Nobody got out.
...but it's still possible. You know what I mean?
When the troops went in to clear the caves, they didn't find bodies. They didn't even find pieces of bodies. They found fragments. A piece of jawbone with a molar in it, a fingertip, a scrap of skin with some hair attached. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying.
The idea that Osama bin Laden and his cadre just slipped out the back door with a vehicle and enough supplies to get them out of the mountains and into Pakistan is laughable in the extreme.
Why does the administration not mention this? Well, they have, indirectly, but why not come right out and say so? The reason there wasn't a screaming press release and banner headlines the next day is that we have no DNA from Osama bin Laden so there's no way for us to positively identify any of the human remains recovered as being from him. Even if we ruled out all the remains recovered, that still wouldn't be conclusive because lots and lots of men were essentially pulverized during the bombing, leaving nothing large enough to recover.
So because we can't conclusively prove that we got him, we have to concede the possibility that he might have clicked his heels together and said "there's no place like Islamabad." It's im-fucking-possible
So instead we go with indirect evidence. Has Osama bin Laden been seen since December 2001? No. Has he been heard? No. (There were some audiotapes. Some were obviously older than 12/01. Some were recorded by persons other than bin Laden. None were both contemporaneous and genuine.) Has he communicated in any way that we could intercept? No, and we can intercept anything from smoke signals to a whisper in a Jakarta nightclub. Has he given any orders, participated in any summits, done --in short --any of the things he did regularly prior to 12/01? No.
He has, in other words, disappeared from the face of the earth. For nearly three years. Which, if you know about bin Laden's personality, is something that he would have a very hard time accomplishing if he were still corporeal and animate.
Osama bin Laden is dead.
I must have missed the line where Mr Cobb said "Twirlip of the Mists is a collosal dumbass".
Unclear on the meaning of quotation marks, are we?
Man, that was fast.
The biggest problem, you idiot, is that the image you're planning on running off on your printer is 72 dpi. Might want to spare a thought for that before you plan your big heist from the Crane and Co. warehouse.
The Electoral College is an historical, anti-democratic and racist anachronism
Oooh, you lost me at "I'm a colossal dumbass." People who use the word "racist" when there is absolutely no racial argument to be made whatsoever--not even an obviously specious one--are not worth our time or attention.
An ad hominem isn't a persuasive argument.
BWAH-ha-ha-ha.
You got beat up a lot in school, didn't you?
I have absolutely no reason to believe anything you said about "summarily deleted," but assuming the rest of your account is true ...what the fuck were you thinking? Are you just a dumbass, or are you actually such a frothing partisan that you thought that question was reasonable? What possible purpose could you have had for posting something like that? Other that, as they say, to troll?
Did you see the blip in the polls the week after Rathergate? Seems like a surprising number of undecideds are paying attention to blogs this year.
There is no such right.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
The most convenient part of .Mac for me is the ability to drop a file onto my iDisk on one of my Macs and then be able to view or download it on any Internet-connected computer via an http: URL. Very handy, very easy, very convenient.
Umm.. don't you mean the cup-of-tea just got a little hotter?
All I know is, what this country needs is taller pie.
No, it couldn't have been. LANTIRN pods use an infrared laser. The Delta pilots said that they saw a laser spot in the cockpit.
Um. The laser did blind the copilot, temporarily. The only question is whether it was accidental or deliberate. It'd be quite easy to set up in an airport's landing pattern with a telescope; you're just a plane-spotter, right? Then zero in on the pilot and copilot and dazzle them. At the very least, you've created an in-air emergency situation and scared a hell of a lot of people. At "best," it's a fireball.
But please...is every new way to hurt somebody going to be another weapon in the terrorist arsenal?
Yes. We're in the middle of a world war. Please get serious and stop whining.
It's nothing personal. You just asked is all.
so far the majority of comments from the Bush crowd are complaining "I call BS! Soros is a liberal!"
Um, no. The outcry has been over the fact that George Soros is a well-documented dumbass with nothing constructive to add to the discussion, but he's been pimped here like the greatest political philosopher of our times.
If you don't like what he has to say, refute it!
Why waste time arguing about nonsense? This isn't a debating society where we argue for fun. This is just an Internet message board where "Soros is a tool" is as valid an opinion as any other.