Hamlet, is it?
Right, then.
We’ll put you down for
“undecided”…
The gods only know what kind of dark fantasy land some of you live in. How anyone could look at the US and bring up this kind of crap is beyond me. 
Put me down for A in part…you are certainly around the bend if you REALLY belive this crap (which I doubt), if not totally insane. Certainly you are using a lot of tin foil in your current wardrobe. However, the second part, that ’ no one in a position of power would murder to keep said power…?’ can’t be made as an absolute statement.
I would say that its highly unlikely that any US politician would use murder to maintain a position of power, simply because in our society everything eventually comes out in the end…no way you could cover something like that up unless you did the deed yourself while tricking the Secret Service you were doing something else.
And I certainly wouldn’t go with Bush as my most likely candidate for murder to maintain power. I read Hersh’s latest, and while its no barrel of laughs for the Administration, its rather unsubstantiated thus far (he SAYS it is, but has provided nothing really tangable as far as proofs…and will probably go with protecting his sources if pressed), but even if it was TOTALLY substantiated, its not likely to hurt all that much…certainly not enough to threaten Bush to the point where murder was a viable option.
No, if any major US politician was going to resort to such things, my money would have been on Nixon before the Watergate thing got really rolling but after he found out things were sliding south. And it didn’t happen.
-XT
I’ve always responded to this allegation by asking why in the hell Ken Starr wasn’t whacked, if Bill Clinton could order executions at will. I was disappointed that Clinton didn’t look Starr up and whip his ass as soon as he left office.
That’s what everyone was expecting! The Clintons are far too cunning to give away their bloody desires.
Airman Doors, USAF:
I don’t have a really protracted history of saying “me too” in response to an Airman Doors post, but he’s right on the proverbial money here.
As vehemently as I hate BushCo, it remains true that there’s a lot of things they would’ve done differently if they were omnipotently able to wipe out all dissenting voices and whistle-blowers.
To start with, those Weapons of Mass Destruction would’ve been found, in large lethal quantities, exactly as he’d indicated they would be. And no stories about the Nigerien nuclear-material sale to Iraq being discredited would have made their way to the newspaper stand either.
While I would not happily trust the sanctity of my 1st Amendment freedoms to the current admin, and the power they do have scares me not just for the actual abuses but for the potential abuses, I think it’s pretty damn obvious that they don’t hold a monopoly on public communication.
As anti-Bush as I am, even I’m not paranoid enough to think he would start whacking journalists. The Bushies’ style is more to try to discredit and villify critics in the press.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to find some kind of dirt or skeleton from Sy’s past and discredit him that way, but I don’t see them as so far gone as to start icing reporters.
According to an interview with Hersh today (Hardball perhaps?), he has between 3-5 sources. Since Rumsfeld is not actually denying that the operation existed and the cat is out of the bag, even a modern day version of G. Gordon Liddy would not help the Administration by offing the man now.
I agree with Airman Doors anyway.
Not that I subscribe to the “George W. Bush has a secret squad of hit-men killers” theory, but let’s remember something:
We’re talking about a person (GWBush) who lied to start a war.
Once you’ve done something that atrocious, there are very few things which are beneath you.
While I’ve seen nothing to indicate that Bush has political hit squads and plenty of evidence he doesn’t, the recent discoveries about the Bush admin. condoning torture has left me feeling considerably more … credulous … about this sort of thing.
On the evidence, Karl Rove has always been able to function quite well as a political hit man without actually killing anyone.
You have evidence that the Bush Administration condoned torture?? I haven’t seen that. Unless you are talking about Hersh’s piece, and he goes out of his way to state that Bush et al didn’t know what was going on (at least from what I read of him earlier…has his story changed?).
Couple of things with this though. For one thing, its a pretty far gap between starting a way and wacking a political enemy with a hit squad, at least in the US. One is statesmanship, the other is murder. The press might crucify Bush for the war, and history might right bad things about him for it, but that will be it. He’d be in SERIOUS problems though if it came out he had someone assasinated though because of politics…and a reporter to boot! COULD it happens? I suppose it could, in the same way I could suddenly sprout wings and fly away. But I find it unlikely in the extreme, obviously.
Of course, the other thing is, its a matter of interperatation as to whether Bush ‘lied’ to start the war. Oh, I have no doubt lies were told (or, more likely data was manipulated to present the best case), but at the core I think Bush DID believe in his reasons for going to war, and so did his Administration…and so did Congress and the Senate. To my mind they were simply wrong on their core premise, but they didn’t lie about it…they really believed it IMO. Of course, IMO even if their core premise would have been right, Iraq was still a mistake because it was unnecessary, but thats another kettle of fish.
-XT
Don’t use “statesmanship” to whitewash the issue. War is fundamentally about having people killed, either the troops you send into battle or the folks they’re gunning for. It may be morally defensible when you’re the one being attacked, but that’s certainly not the case here. Calling this “statesmanship” is like dismissing the Hindenberg as a “minor mistake.”
Data was cherry-picked. Bullshit was presented as facts before the United Nations. Claims of vast stockpiles and mobile WMD laboratories were repeatedly presented as known, confirmed facts. Don’t dick around with euphemisms, he lied.
Hell, at this point in time, calling George W. Bush a liar is no longer a personal attack, but a mere statement of the truth, much like saying “Yao Ming is tall” or “Steven Spielberg is a director.”
All the information I’ve seen indicates they were misled by the Administration – they never had full access to all of the data, but were required to make decisions only on vetted intelligence and/or the reassurances of high-level officials.
What the hell are you talking about? I’m talking about the difference between a sitting president sending his country to war (which is generally acceptable and not grounds for a jail sentence, no?) and a president ordering the murder of a political rival or journalist…which is.
Where are you getting the rest of this bullshit from? I’m making no comparison about morals here, rjung…but about acceptable behavior. And I hate to break this to you…GW isn’t likely to go to jail for involving the US in Iraq. I know thats got to shatter some of your fondest dreams, but it aint gona happen. However, GW certainly WOULD go to jail if he was caught ordering the assasination of a journalist. Do you get what I mean NOW?
And I raise your bullshit and call with a horseshit right back to ya. We can and have gone round and round on this before. There is simply no proof that he deliberately ‘lied’ at the core of his arguement (or if there is, produce it), and there is a lot of proof that he wasn’t the only one who though Saddam had the damn things and was hiding them.
You know it, I know it. You can wave your hands about and pretend you don’t know it, but you do. That said, I think a reasonable person could agree that Bush et al DID manipulate the data at their disposal to make it look better than it in fact was. But at the core they believed Iraq DID have WMD hidden in the country, and that the US would simply find them. Its beyond credibility that the Administration KNEW Saddam didn’t have the things and yet kept insisting that he did publically and often, deliberately lieing when they knew none would be found.
I’ve yet to hear this ‘logic’ adaquately explained…maybe you’d like to take a shot at it? How could a US politician (of any stripe) deliberately lie about something when he KNEW that it would be found out and become a huge embarrasment to him and his Administration? Ok, so you think GW is stupid…but NO ONE is THAT stupid. The only reason they would have kept banging on about WMD was because they thought they were there and that they would find them. They were obviously wrong…but that doesn’t make them liars.
One last point on this…would it matter to you if they HAD found tons and tons of the stuff? Would it make any difference? Would you then be in support of the invasion? You know my view on it…whats yours?
Again, horseshit. Has it never dawned on you that if Congress and the Senate DID think this they would have completely turned on the President by now and we’d be going through impeachment hearings left and right…and hell, maybe criminal hearings as well? Why aren’t we rjung? Even Republicans would be feeling the burn if they REALLY were tricked and lied too to start a war…THEY have to run for re-election too, you know?
But, if you have a cite handy claiming that the majority in either the house or senate think they were in fact mis-lead, tricked and/or lied too by the Administration, by all means trot that puppy out. Even if its a majority of Democrats, that will be fine as I’m sure you are itching to say the reason is that Republicans control both houses.
-XT
Powell drops it in his lap
likewise, the latest installment has rumsfeld explicitely approvin g expansion of special acces program methodologies. that’s bush admin, let alone ;cambone is in up to the hambone. (ugh…)
right, then.
too late to off Hersh.
(Can I interest you in Michael Moore? Care to write his life insurance policy?)
Um…are you aware, alaricthegoth, that there is a difference between ‘condoning torture’ and being “fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details, but in general terms”?
Allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq, and that the military was taking action to address it…doesn’t sound like it was ‘condoned’ at all. Sounds like the military was aware of a problem, that Bush was made aware of a POSSIBLE problem in GENERAL terms, and that he gave instructions that it should be handled. Where do you get that Bush ‘condoned torture’ out of this?
-XT
The charge was not that Bush condoned torture but that his administration did. The administration includes the Cabinet. the Cabinet includes the Secretary of Defense, i.e Rummy. Rummy approved torture. Rummy is part of the Bush administration. The Bush administration approved torture. QED.
If you have the authority to gain access to the finest intelligence in the world, and you use that authority to produce intelligence that justifies your preferred goals, and use it for your specific political ends, it might conceivably be true that you are not a liar. However, until we get a real liar you can accomplish all that the real liar could.
Failure of leadership isn’t a fault in private. It is somewhat more disappointing in a Commander in Chief.
Anyone who believes that assassination never happens in the United States has deeply rose tinted glasses through which to peer. However, it is unlikely that Bush could improve his current political position by having a prominent newsman whacked. Not because he couldn’t achieve plausible deniability for the murder, but because it would only prove to the rest of the journalistic world that that newsman was sitting on a powder keg, and a Pulitzer.
Tris
Doesn’t ‘condone’ mean approve of? If they approved of it, why were they looking into it, keeping the president informed, taking steps (albiet slow steps…it IS the government after all) to find out what was going on and correct it? Makes no sense to me. If you approve of/condone something why would you WANT to look into it, to find out if there is a problem (since you would know all about it, approving of it and all), and take steps to correct it. You condone it…whats to fix??
As to the ‘Rummy approved torture’ I thought this as an allegation…not a proven fact. When/if it IS proven, then you could say that Rummy approved torture…but you can’t really say this was the entire Administration, unless you can also prove Rummy did so with the full knowledge and concent of the Cabinet, Bush, etc. No?
-XT
No, NO! Get your story straight, here!
The current rubbish from the other side is: John Kerry is a cicada!
OK, not quite:
BTW, I’m more amused than anything else by this. This has been the “top story” on the official RNC website since late last week! If they don’t have anything better to throw at Kerry, this race is so over.
As regards the OP, I’ll admit that this Administration is legitimizing some concerns that used to be tinfoilhat territory. But these guys aren’t killers themselves, remember: this is the Chickenhawk Administration; there isn’t a Gordon Liddy among them. They’d have to order someone else to kill Hersh. And that’s just not gonna happen.