Tell you the truth, I don’t think he’s kidding, people from Ioway, about as close as they get to post-modernist irony is Orville Redenbacher. Not like sophisticated cosmopolitans you find here in Minnesota.
I think that is part of the gambit. They know, and these boards will demonstrate, that a portion of the public will accept anything, however flimsy, just so long as it has come conceivable relevence. Its very murkiness is its selling point, the fact that it cannot be proved or disproved makes it useful. Its not going to have any impact on me or mine, but it isn’t intended to, for us they’d need actual proof positive, and it ain’t gonna happen.
Its the retarded red-headed stepchild of “plausible deniability”.
Meh, who knows. There was that guy at Guantanamo, wasn’t there? I mean I don’t know if he had an actual AQ membership card…I’ll just say that I’ve got access to different sources if anyone asks…
Because the time to call a spade a spade has not yet arrived. Because events my well sink the present regime without the need to tell the electorate that it is composed of gullible idiots. Because Kerry isn’t ready to go accusatorial or a major scale, yet. Wait until after the conventions. Then all hell is going to break lose. I full expect the motto of the Democrat Convention to be, not “Happy Days Are Here Again,” but "To The Lamp Posts!”
And, Elucidator as a striped yepper I never know whether to take your mildly sarcastic comments about the great commonwealth to your south seriously or not. Since they have about the same credibility and gravitas of the Bush campaigns comments about Senator Kerry’s habitual opposition to buying flack vest for our brave boys defending America in Iraq I will treat them with the distain they deserve. There is, however, a limit.
Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Spav. Hell, didn’t even know you had any. Figured you were pretty comfortable with the esteem I have for you. Whcih is considerable.
But its your call, companero. You say there are limits, there are limits. Won’t be as much fun…
So this Iowa terrist runs to the Minnesota border, and throws over a dynamite bomb. Minnesota guy picks it up, lights it, and throws it back…
Positively the last one. I swear. As Eugene V. Debs is my witness, not another one, so help me!
CIA: No Iraqi officer link in al-Qaida meeting
White House official denies commissioner’s statement that tied Saddam’s Fedayeen unit to al-Qaida Knut Royce
Washington Bureau
June 22, 2004
WASHINGTON – The CIA concluded “a long time ago” that an al-Qaida associate who met with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia was not an officer in Saddam Hussein’s army, as alleged Sunday by a Republican member of the 9/11 commission.
Well, it was fun for me to hope while it lasted.
So do we invade, attack, smack on some sanctions? Nope.
You would think that we would learn from our past mistakes, like, oh, helping Osama and SH, that Pakistan will come back and bite us in the ass 20 years from now?
I am told that the United States and the whole civilized world are at war with a noun, terrorism. I am also told that the first casualty of any war is truth. I believe that. This whole thing with LTC Schakeem(?) just confirms that axiom.
This is a lot like being in a trial with an unscrupulous adversary who just throws out any thing he can think of that might conceivably bolster his cause with no regard to truth or falsity or foundation. He just blurts it out and leaves it to you to deal with his blather. It is his view that if he throws enough stuff at the jury some of it will be accepted as true and that anything not rebutted is concede to be true. The difference is that in trials there is a judge who, if he is doing his job, will shortly sanction the unscrupulous and find a way to let the jury know that they should look out for sharp practice.
With regard to Congressional staffs and committee staffs, it is apparent to me, based on observation and on experience, that the staff has been living with the issues and facts for months and collectively know a whole lot more about what is going on than does any one member of the committee or all the suits that make up the committee together. A comment about the “no corroborative relationship” being the product of an out of control committee staff is just like the claim that LTC Shakeem was both Iraqi militia and AlQuida. Both were just convienent statements thrown out without any regard to whether they were any place close to truthful because they momentarily diverted attention from the central issue.
I hope the mods don’t object to the following long citation, taken from Juan Cole’s website:
[QUOTE]
**A reader asked me to comment on the controversy over whether an Iraqi intelligence agent was detailed to al-Qaeda in Kuala Lumpur to be the guy that picked people up at the airport. It was covered by the Washington Post after the allegation was made by 9/11 Commission member John Lehman, former secretary of the Navy.
furt’s just teasing me.
He knows how earnestly I hope and desire to be wrong about this whole tragic fiasco. He got my hopes up only to let them be dashed. He’s prob’ly smirking at this very moment.
[QUOTE=Mr. Svinlesha]
I hope the mods don’t object to the following long citation, taken from Juan Cole’s website:
That one really was too long for copyright purposes, Mr. Svinlesha, so I removed everything after the intro. It was very germane to the debate but the way the points built on one another I couldn’t find a place to snip that condensed the argument.
Sorry, Mr. Svinlesha, but your link was left intact.
