Ding Dong The Witch is Dead: Part 1 of a long upcoming series

wrote:
Bill Sornson wrote:
Between the two of them they "couldn't recall" over *500* times in various
testimonies (including Clinton not "recalling" ever being alone with
Lewinsky)

Let's say for the sake of argument that Bill Clinton did all those
things you say he did. Are you suggesting that what he did makes it all
right for Libby to lie and commit perjury to cover up his (or someone
else's) involvement in a treasonous (if not technically actually
treason) plot to expose the cover of an American CIA agent as part of a
broader conspiracy to to trick Americans into an illegal war that has
now cost the lives of over 2,000 American troops, 17,000 wounded, and
worn out what was formerly the most powerful conventional military
force in the world?

Heh, haven't you heard (from Jon Stewart on the Daily Show)? To the
right wingnuts 2000 dead sperm in Monica Lewinski's gullet is as big a
travesty as 2000 dead American troops.

Never mind that we still haven't found Bin Laden, and instead turned
Iraq into a live Al Qaeda training camp, based on lies and fabrications.

wrote:
Bill Sornson wrote:

Libby, who hasn't been convicted of anything yet BTW, did NOT lie about the
alleged "underlying crime(s)" in the leak case (which in fact were never
proved -- probably because Flame was NOT a covert agent).

It seemed to me that Fitzgerald went through great pains in
his newsconference to say that she was in fact undercover.
But he would also have to prove that the leakers knew she
was undercover, because inadvertantly blowing her cover is
not a crime.

Inadvertently blowing her cover could be a crime if he knew her status
was classified. Libby is quoted in the indictment as saying that he
could get in the trouble with the CIA if he talked about her status.
But that inhibition didn't last long. He eventually was blabbing about
it to everyone.

This is really a kind of nauseating line of argument, though. It's
basically about whether Libby is criminally culpable for doing
something that is inarguably despicable.

wrote:

It seemed to me that Fitzgerald went through great pains in
his newsconference to say that she was in fact undercover.

To be precise, he went to great pains not to break the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act himself (by the way, right wingnuts: the Act
never says "name", it says "identity"- the whole charade of whether
anyone actually used her name is a crude diversion). Since the right
wingnuts have now conveniently blurred the issue, for Fitzgerald
himself to come out and say "she was a covert agent", over and above
the agreed upon fact that her status was classified, would itself be a
violation of the law. I believe this is also why he is not prosecuting
under that law, whereas from the details of the indictment, that law,
and the espionage act and the official secrets act, were unambiguously
broken.

No one should think Rove is out of the woods. The talking heads seem
unable yet to put together 2 + 2, but what clearly is the case, from
information already disclosed (i.e. leaked by Rove's counsel), is that
Fitzgerald had already put together an indictment against Rove, which
he was expecting to release Friday. But Rove, in typical fashion, came
up at the last minute with some "previously undisclosed" "evidence"
that he hoped would argue against that. The point of producing it at
the last minute was so that Fitzgerald would not have time to fully
evaluate it before expiration of the term of the grand jury, in the
hope that therefore, he would just move on. But what Fitzgerald did
instead was to set aside the time to fully evaluate it, and that is
what is going on now. "Evaluate" for Fitzgerald must mean not just to
sit around and think about it, but also to investigate the
circumstances surrounding it, so this may be another miscalculation by
Rove. It appears by the way that this "evidence" supplied by Rove is
very weak: an email from Rove to a press secretary the next day *not*
mentioning anything about his leak the previous day, the argument
therefore being that he didn't think it a very important matter. Hardee
har har har.

All the above info is from leaks from Rove's lawyer, and the indictment
itself.

================================================== ===================

Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.)
(governing disclosures that could expose confidential Government
agents)

----------

From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [Laws
in effect as of January 6, 1997] [Document not affected by Public Laws
enacted between January 6, 1997 and November 30, 1998] [CITE: 50USC421]



TITLE 50--WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE CHAPTER 15--NATIONAL SECURITY
SUBCHAPTER IV--PROTECTION OF CERTAIN NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION

Sec. 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover
intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources

(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access
to classified information that identifies covert agent

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified
information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any
information identifying such covert agent to any individual not
authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the
information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the
United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert
agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined
not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert
agents as result of having access to classified information

Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified
information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally
discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any
individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing
that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that
the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert
agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined
not more than $25,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of
activities intended to identify and expose covert agents

Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify
and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such
activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities
of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an
individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to
receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed
so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking
affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified
intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more
than $15,000 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(July 26, 1947, ch. 343, title VI, Sec. 601, as added June 23, 1982,
Pub. L. 97-200, Sec. 2(a), 96 Stat. 122.)
================================================== ===========================

Note this paragraph:
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified
information
that identifies a covert agent,
[Asserted in indictment for both Rove and Libby]
intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent
to any individual not authorized to receive classified information,
[Asserted in indictment for both Rove and Libby]
knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent
[That Ambassador Wilson was married to Valerie Plame Wilson was a
matter of public record]
and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal
such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States,
[Asserted in indictment for both Rove and Libby]
shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten
years, or both.



What kind of bike does he ride?

Jasper Janssen wrote:
ABC, as it used to be known, Atomic, Biological, Chemical, were the
trifecta that were all considered to be too dangerous to actually use,
ever. Since 1945, when the US *had* atomics and the rest of the world
didn't, US policy has been based on the fact that any bio or chemical
attack would be retaliated against with nukes, which allowed them to not
spend any money on Bio and Chem development *coughcough*, which they could
even present as a major blow for peace. You agree or disagree with the
equation, but it's been that way for 60 freaking years. ABC, then NBC, and
now WMD. TLAs rule!

It has been that way for whom?

A little perspective...

Compare the fire bombing of Tokyo by the US in 1945:

"Stacked up corpses were being hauled away on lorries. Everywhere
there was the stench of the dead and of smoke. I saw the places on the
pavement where people had been roasted to death. At last I comprehended
first-hand what an air-raid meant. I turned back, sick and scared.
Later I learned that 40% of Tokyo was burned that night, that there had
been 100,000 casualties and 375,000 left homeless."
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk...s_on_japan.htm

....with the use of chemical weapons by Saddam in 1988, using nerve
agents and helicopters obtained from the US:

"The Halabja poison gas attack was an incident on 15 March-19 March
1988 during a major battle in the Iran-Iraq war when chemical weapons
were used, allegedly by Iraqi government forces, to kill a number of
people in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja (population 80,000).
Estimates of casualties range from several hundred to 5,000 people."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack

Which do you think was the most horrible... and best fit with the term
"mass destruction"?

wrote:
Bill Sornson wrote:

Libby, who hasn't been convicted of anything yet BTW, did NOT lie
about the alleged "underlying crime(s)" in the leak case (which in
fact were never proved -- probably because Flame was NOT a covert
agent).

It seemed to me that Fitzgerald went through great pains in
his newsconference to say that she was in fact undercover.

Actually, he went to great pains to NOT say that.

How many "covert agents" donate money to presidential candidates under their
real name; send their clearly partisan spouse overseas to "investigate"
something for which he's clearly unqualified; then said spouse spouts off in
the NY Times (misrepresenting what he DID find, BTW); and then, when Robert
Novak publishes her identity, /poses for magazine covers/, which WOULD
endanger her contacts if she indeed was ever covert in the first place?!?

Something really stinks in all this, so go ahead and gloat now before the
whole story becomes clear. The only one PROVEN to be a liar so far is
Wilson -- but he's got a book to sell so don't expect 60 Minutes or GMA to
ask him any tough questions.

N&F

"Qui si parla Campagnolo" wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:
"David L. Johnson" wrote:

But for some reason he did not unilaterally invade, causing the death of
2000 US soldiers, the maiming of 15000 US soldiers, and the deaths of
untold others. What Bill Clinton may have said is different from what
George W. Bush did, and the lies he used to get the country to go along
with what he wanted to do.

So the question is - when Clinton said that Iraq had WMD and must be
dealt with, was he lying?

C'mon Mark, even you can't buy into this mission creep....Bad info now
made for a bad invasion. Poor prediction of what the post war, winning
the peace would be...= quagmire. Kinda like Vietnam. The similarities
are obvious.

Though you dodged the question. Was Bill Clinton lying when he said
precisely the same thing that GWB said?

"Mission creep" occurs when the situation changes - and if you don't
think 9/11 changed the situation, you're ignoring a lot of history
IMHO.

"stay the course' isn't working. We can't stop the IEDs, sure bet the
Iraqi won't either. We will pay for their army, leave with a smile,
return with honor and watch the country implode, just like Vietnam. WE
created this country for takeover of the likes of BinLaden. Saddam was
a murderer but at least he was 'our' murderer, and not threatening the
USA.

I don't buy the fact that we've "created" any more terrorists in Iraq
- I think we HAVE focused them however. Fortunately that focus is in
Iraq rather than in the US. Fact is, it really doesn't matter if
we're in Iraq or not - the extemist Wahabi Islam sect has in its
charter the elimination of all non-Islam cultures. The fact they're
worried about the potential for working democracies in Iraq and
Afghanistan is proven beyond a shadow of doubt by their reaction to
the democratization process underway.

I agree Iraq isn't going to be Disneyland any time soon, and that some
errors were made. I do know that no terrorist groups are able to rely
on Iraqi state sponsorship now, and I think that's a good thing. I
also know that other countries in the region (think Libya for example)
know that they old "bluff and bluster game" isn't going to work any
more. Even the UN seems to be coming around in relation to Iran (now
that we've apparently taken the profit motive out of support for
despots).

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Another thread, another time:

"Would somebody *please* give this guy a blowjob so we can impeach him?"

Oral sex between consenting adults isn't a crime. Sexually harassment
of employees (i.e. dropping your pants and asking a subordinate for
oral sex) IS. Either Clinton supporters aren't too bright (I don't
believe that...) or they're living in a painful state of cognitive
dissonance (I DO believe that) about Clinton's history.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

wrote:

Let's say for the sake of argument that Bill Clinton did all those
things you say he did. Are you suggesting that what he did makes it all
right for Libby to lie and commit perjury to cover up his (or someone
else's) involvement in a treasonous (if not technically actually
treason) plot to expose the cover of an American CIA agent as part of a
broader conspiracy to to trick Americans into an illegal war that has
now cost the lives of over 2,000 American troops, 17,000 wounded, and
worn out what was formerly the most powerful conventional military
force in the world?

I'll ask you the same question I did earlier in this thread:

Whe Bill Clinton said the same things that GWB later said, was he
lying?

Read the indictment; the evidence is there that there was a plot to
"get" Joe Wilson for telling the truth when everyone else in the
government was telling lies to get us into the Iraq War and help the
GOP win the 2002 elections; Exposing his wife as a CIA agent may have
been purely incidental to that, but they knew her status was
classified, and they were blabbing it to anyone who they thought might
print it because, at the very least the wanted to discredit him for
telling the truth and at worst they wanted to punish him.

If he's guilty of a crime, he should be punished. Period. There's
great doubt about this point of course (the special prosecutor
couldn't get a previous grand jury to buy into the evidence, for
example), but you seem to be willing to forego the "innocent until
proven guilty" bit of our justice system if the defendant is on the
wrong side of the fence.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

"Tom Ace" wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

Everyone has lapses of memory when
testifying - Libby may have forgotten about a conversation with a
reporter or two -

Read the indictment's description of what happened, and tell
me how likely you think it is that Libby didn't lie but rather
just had a lapse of memory.

Fari enough - I admit I haven't read the indictment (or at least not
past the second page of it). I've been relying on only the reporting
I've heard (including right- and left-leaning sources). None of those
sources convinced me that it couldn't be a case of faulty memory (I'd
hate to be tasked with accurate recall of conversations from two years
ago - I have trouble enough remembering accurately conversations from
last Tuesday). ;-)

I'm willing to believe whatever comes out in the actual trial, and
hope Libby gets appropriate punishment if it's determined he in fact
did commit felony perjury.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame