I got most of it off the wikipedia page on Qaddafi (under reformed character).
Not that I’m particularly eager to defend HRC’sG, but what part of his remark implied anything at all about patriotism? The argument he did make was extremely weak and easily refuted. In fact something along the lines of this:
… is just about right.
This bears repeating. This administatrions unfettered ability to exercise its policies have made us less safe. I think any administration’s ability to exercise unfettered power is a bad thing.
Another thing that may bear repeating (but may be the equivalent of pissing in the wind) is that you are more likely to die on your commute to work than get injured in a terrorist attack.
Let’s also keep in mind that we haven’t seen the entire report. Yet.
I think it’s almost a prima facie observation that the Iraq war is generating more terrorists, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are less safe since there are other activities that have reduced the number of terrorists. I also find it interesting that no one here has condemed the selective leaking of only this part of the report so close to the upcoming election. Had something favorable to Bush been leaked, I have no doubt that we’d be descussing this in the Pit and hearing how this proved that the Republicans manipulate elections.
You can lead a horse to democracy but you can’t make him… how does that go again?
Vote? 
Like . . .what ?
You cannot play fair with the Republicans, nor do they deserve compassion or consideration. They are the the party of amorality, evil, and outright craziness as far as I’m concerned; corrupt and malignant and fanatical to the bone. Rather like the combination of a religious cult and the Mafia. You should use every dirty trick you can bring yourself to tolerate against them, because they will do the same ( minus the "tolerate; thay have no such compunctions ) without hesitation. You should also be prepared to deal with whatever forms of dishonesty or corruption or intimidation they will bring against you.
… run for office
… take office, if elected
… activate an effective police force or militia
… unite the fragmented scociety
… repair the infrastructure
Excuse me, I’d like to return this horse. I have a receipt.
Nor will we, since he’s only declassifying part of the document.
Not that you’re defending them, or anything. Keep this up, you’re going to have to make that disclaimer your sig line.
And yes, I too have noted recent suggestions that the Bushiviks are going to engage another “Operation Candor” type activity. I also note the careful use of the word “parts” of the NIE, since, after all, truth is classified.
And just as you note, somebody leaked this. Probably someone who thinks they can benefit from the truth. After about four years of being lied to on a daily basis, my capacity for outrage is a bit worn.
Do I think that the Bushiviks will use their power to leak information favorable to themselves and disfavorable to their opposition, while witholding truth of the opposite spin? Why, yes, I do. Very much.
Do you doubt it?
Offered without comment, developing.
From ThinkProgress (Decidedly lefty! Shields up!)
There is a difference between different types of leaks. In fact, I have heard it argued that the sort of “leaks” you are talking about are really “plants”. In a true leak, in the positive sense of the word, there is an element of whistle-blowing, i.e., of letting the public know something that the powers-that-be are trying to suppress from them. In a plant, by contrast, the powers-that-be are simply using that power, and the accompanying access to secret information, to anonymously discredit someone (as in the Plame case) or to cherry-pick what information that gets out to the public (as in the hypothetical cases that you discuss).
You might argue that the “leakers” of the type I am thinking of may have cherry-picked information too. However, since the President has the power to declassify whatever he wants to declassify, the ability to successfully play that game in opposition to the President is rather limited. In fact, the only way to really win would be if you in fact did not cherry-pick but gave an accurate presentation…In which case, we are back to this being a leak in the positive sense of the word. [I suppose another way you could win is if you were dealing with a President who was so principled that he would rather look bad and have his party lose an election than declassify any information at all that he thought shouldn’t be declassified. (I’ll now wait for the laughter to die down!) Or, you could leak the information so close to the election that the President doesn’t have a chance to declassify the information that would rebut it…but that hardly seems applicable here.]
This helps explain the odd dance between the Democrats and Negroponte I brought up in post#27. The question remains, is there a third NIE being rushed to completion even as we speak?
Someone leaking selected portions of the NIE to make Bush look bad is a good thing, wondrously to be praised. Bush declassifying selected portions of it to make himself look good is a bad thing, earnestly to be scorned.
These things ought to be kept classified for obvious reasons: when one side chooses to use them for political purposes, the other will inevitably retaliate.
Good job contradicting your statement with the quote. He did not say Reagan was directly responsible for the gassing. Please give a cite showing the Reagan administration’s outrage about it, with ways that they punished Saddam for committing this atrocity - while we still had influence.
Since the report was completed in April. there was plenty of time to leak - or even release - the appropriate parts if there was good news. Perhaps those who did leak it were tired of all bad news being unavoidably delayed until after elections - do you think that is any better?
The real question is whether there are more terrorists now than there would have been if there was no war. The talking points I’ve heard so far have involved saying that there would be terrorism anyhow and that 9/11 was not due to Iraq. Strawmen, since no one is claiming the terrorist problem would go away if the Iraq war hadn’t started.
Sure, terrorists/insurgents are dying in Iraq - but how many are Iraqis vs foreign imports, and are the number of foreign terrorists killed greater than those recruited thanks to Iraq? Doubtful.
Beyond that, we had won a clear victory in Afghanistan - that had to have hurt recruiting
I have a hard time imagining how the report could reasonably say that the war has helped the WoT. Though those quoted in the Times were anonymous (for good reason) they did not seem to be rabid anti-War types, and I suspect at least some of what they said would have been balanced by good news if there had been any.
How is this ‘classic Iraqi tactics?’ They did this kinda horse hockey when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, so I doubt really the insurgents in Iraq are having that much of an effect when there already is a developed insurgency in the South a-la Taliban.
People in Afghanistan fighting the Coalition have had nearly 30 years of fighting experience, not to mention the culture is pretty much the law of the gun anyways.
I see it as a case of whistle blowing, I’m not willing to follow the Republican say so that that is a bad thing for the nation, I appreciate leaks like this when the current government is actively looking the other way at what is going on in Iraq, and I don’t care what party gets egg on its face when the government is not forthcoming with accurate information regarding a war fought in the name of the American people.
Recently Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo made the point that the results of private Party polls are leaked when the results benefit the party. The interesting bit was noticing that Republican leaks in that regard are far and fewer this time around.
I think in this case it is not a party, but the whole country that is affected when information like that is hidden, if the report had been favorable to the Republicans, even a leak would not have been necessary.
I don’t know if it was a partisan leak. There isn’t any evidence that it was. But there are any number of posters here who assume that leaks in favor of Bush are always politically motivated, and yet none of them seems to care when the leaks work the other way. If the leak was a distortion of the overall report, then I don’t know if it’s effective whistleblowing. Hopefully we’ll see enough of the report to draw our own conclusions. But it is a fact that this country lives and breathes on leaks, even if it is illegal.
We may not have any way of knowing exactly how much of the report was declassified, but I don’t expect them to declassify sources and methods so there are some aspects that should remain secret. Do you have any more specific info?
That was a quick declassification:
The entire article contains one more paragraph at this point. No doubt we’ll soon see more detail.
I hope they took the time to vet the redactions before pushing this baby out the door. 