luci,
You do realize that these meetings that Ghorbanifar set up were with a “former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard”. This is the exact same group that Aras Karim Habib was a former member of.
For those who may not know Mr. Habib was in charge of the Iraqi National Congress’ Information collection program. The one that supplied ‘Curveball’ and the intelligence about the mobile bio-weapons facilities. The ones who supplied the intelligence that Powell described as “deliberately misleading.”
For further discussion, see this thread: **DIA says Iran INC to get US into Invade Iraq?**
Interestingly enough, Ghorbanifar is thought by some, (including Ollie North) to work for “at least one” Israeli intelligence service as well as having worked for Savak.
Erm… surely you’re not accusing me of lying when I stated, in detail, just why I was asking for a cite?
In case you are confused ‘he’, being me, certainly does expect a cite for claims of that sort.
This was not a ‘debating tactic’, it’s just good common sense. Someone makes a claim, you ask for proof. I could not ‘[dismiss] an opposing view’ of the person putting forward that view had ironclad facts to back up their position, now could I?
Personal opinion generally cant’ stand on an equal level as proven facts, sure as hell not in a debate. If you try to put your opinion up against my fact, you lose 100 times out of 100.
Moreover, if someone is ignorant of something that is ‘common knowledge’, and someone shows them a cite, then, viola! Their ignorance is cleared up, now isn’t it?
“Prove the statement you have just made” =/= “Nyeh nyeh! You’re a poopyhead!”
Erunh? How is this obvious?
If I said “Jews own all the media in America.”
Would you be as lax in asking me for a cite?
Would you claim that it was only opinion and therefore nobody could challenge it on factual grounds?
We’d all just have to accept that there’s a vast Jewish plot to rule the airwaves?
The statement “Israel owns us…” seems to be an attempt at making a factual assertion, namely, that Israel has control, or a great deal of control over our officials. This is a claim that must be backed up if it is made.
And, I would argue, there is a difference between our officials being influenced by their personal ideological desire to help Israel and Israel coming over and telling them what to do, as they would if we were 'owned’
Please do not waffle, first you claim it is a simple ‘opinion’, and now you are claiming that it could in fact be applied with truth to certain “bought-and-paid-for members of congress.”
Mind providing a cite showing certain members of congress are bought and paid for?
And your cite has been dealt with.
Funny though, why the diatribe if you were then going to go and give a cite anyways?
Wait, how does Israel have 80% of the Nobel Prize winners? As far as I can tell, Israel had 4 Nobel Prize winners:
Menachim Begin (Peace)
Shimon Peres (Peace)
Yitzhak Rabin (Peace)
S.Y. Agnon (Literature)
and there’s maybe a fifth…Daniel Kahneman (Economics) was born in Mandate Palestine and educated in Israel, but teaches at Princeton (and taught there when he won the Nobel). So, that’s nowhere near 80%
Damn straight. The total amount of foreign aid to Egypt from 1948 to 2004 has been $59.9 billion. To Israel, over the same period, $93.4 billion. As I’ve said before, very nearly one-third of all US foreign aid goes to these two countries.
“Stated in detail”?? You call this stating in detail…
Na, I wouldn’t accuse you of lyin’.
You are familiar with AIPAC, aren’t you?
Now, when AIPAC makes a donation to a congressman’s reelection, would you suppose that the congressman who receives the donation would be expected to vote accordingly, or do you think that AIPAC is donating to the congressman’s campaign out of benevolence?
Which do you think? Now, don’t waffle. Oh, and here’s a “cite” for you.
As I’ve stated I am serious in my desire for factual confirmation, how am I to take your claim that I am, in reality, not serious? Do you retract your statement that:
? ? ?
Pointing to the fact that politicians take money from people is certainly no proof that they’re bought-and-paid for.
By your logic, every single congressman who ever takes a dime (or is it only a sizeable ammount?) from a PAC or other group is 'bought-and-paid-for."
Prove that taking money from AIPAC determines their agenda.
Further, prove that if they do vote in accord with AIPAC’s positions, that those votes aren’t in the congressman’s district’s and/or the nation’s best interests in any case. (or best interests as seen by the congressman)
And then the very next sentence:
So, do you just want to argue both sides of the issue to cover your bases? Is it an opinion and thus, in your opinion ~grins~, invulnerable to requests for proof…
Or is it a fact, and thus totally vulnerable to analysis on factual and logical grounds?
Please choose one position or the other, as, if you attempt to argue both, you are waffling.
And: yes, you have a cite (why the quotes?) proving that pro Israel-PAC’s give money to candidates and participate in the political process. Your own cite says that there are 38 groups that give more money. Are we to assume that those 38 groups have bought-and-paid-for congressmen? Do these PAC’s have to divy up the congressmen, or are some bought-and-paid-for by various, contradictory ideologies? How do the bought-and-paid-for congressmen respond to being ‘owned’ by multiple lobiests? Do the top fourty groups meet and discuss who gets a percentage of various politicians’ souls, or is it more a first-come-first-served sorta thing?
Unbiased? No. In this case, more accurate than your pathetic source? Yes. Or did you notice that no reputable news organization on the planet ran with the story? Even the UK papers that have no history of being kindly disposed to Israel?
Did you notice that every site on the web that cited your alleged news story repeated it word-for-word, indicating that it arose from a single questionable source? There’s no transcript of the news story in question and no independent verification to be found. Even though if the “quote” were genuine, it would have generated vast ripples.
Your cite is bogus, and no competent debater would present it at face value without doing enough research to learn that it was bogus.
BUSH AIDE FACES QUIZ OVER LINKS TO ISRAELI SPY Richard Perle, one of President Bush’s closest allies, is expected to be questioned by the FBI this week about an Israeli spy in the Pentagon.
No copy on the net yet, but someone posted excerpts on another board:
“The Sunday Express has learnt that some of the information allegedly passed on came from telephone calls made by a member of MI6 to Perle and two other senior members of the Bush administration – Vice President Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz…”
“A senior Washington intelligence source told the Sunday Express yesterday: ‘The MI6 figure made those calls because he wanted MI6 information to dovetail with what the Washington neo-cons wanted Bush to hear.’…”
“The FBI investigtion team is being supported by a special Pentagon unit under the control of John Shaw, a deputy director of defence. He is working closely with FBI director Robert Mueller.”
Bearing in mind that this is coming from a rag… but very interesting if true.
I found that Angleton, but I assumed that because he was dead that was out of the running. Little did I know.
I saw something else that had Perle’s name in it, but I forget now where it was. He was just being tied into the zoo crew featured in this thread.
I’m always flabbergasted that Perle has been able to survive in public life. I’m always amazed at how little of a reaction his exploits engender. Prince of Darkness indeed.
I’m not an isolationist and have numerous other disagreements with the man, but Buchanan’s starting to look less kooky than before.
It is absofuckinglutely amazing to me that these people involved with this stuff are not strange fruit dangling from a tall tree over a crowd of justified patriots.
The OSP has screwed America so hatrd and so royally since the gitgo.
They cherry picked the pre-war inetl used to sell the war (esp what was used in teh media).
They made sure that deliberately misleading evidence provided through Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp agents made it’s way into the hands of the American electiorate, legislative and executive branches.
The OSP scrapped the year long efforts of the hundreds of Americans and Iraqis in the State Department’s Future of Iraq project infavor of a few months work from their office. The horrible, grisly results of their mistakes are growing more apparent every day.
The OSP used worst case scenarios tosell te invasion of Iraq while using fairy tale best case scenarios to plan for the reconstruction phase of the invasion.
They were responsible for the leaking of classififed material to the media (NRO).
They are at the center of the Iranian spy scandal.
And now, they are at the center of the Israeli spy scandal.
For the same reason Rush Limbaugh holds his fans in contempt - they not only get away with it, they are rewarded for it. Rush was a failure before he got with the program (although I do think there’s a spark of humanity left in Rush - he’s not a happy man in spite of his success, is he?).
You may as well ask why America rewards those who hold it in contempt. Everybody loves a winner, right?
Just for fun, read Ledeen’s take on Iran-Contra via the rogerlsimon blog:
Get the picture? It wasn’t a crime, it was a “crime”. It’s not reality, it’s “reality”. And “reality” is so much more fun than those “boring” debates.
In moments of doubt, read The Prince again, channel a dead guy, and laugh all the way to the bank…
