The president doesn’t declare war. Congress does. They called it the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002” and I don’t buy the argument that they thought they were voting for something other than authorization for the use of military force against Iraq. They may have quibbles with how exactly Bush used that military force, but Clinton and company voted for it.
From wikipedia: “The resolution authorized President Bush to use the Armed Forces of the United States “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” in order to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.””
I took that to mean that is was his decision to go to war or not to.
Wow! Is that how you really believe events unfolded? That “the intelligence community” came up with all the wrong conclusions, and Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and all the other PNAC neocons just calmly and impartially reviewed all the information and then acted in good faith? The same bunch of PNAC neocons who had been chomping at the bit to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam ever since the beginning of 1998? The group who had been desperately looking for a “Pearl Harbor” type of catalyzing event (their words) to justify a nation-building invasion, and to whom 9/11 was like a gift beyond their wildest dreams, so that within hours of the 9/11 attacks Rumsfeld was plotting to use it as a pretext to overthrow Saddam?
Here’s a bit of a summary: Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq.
Note who the liars were. It wasn’t the intelligence community. Why do you think Bush and Cheney and the other lying scheming PNAC thugs have been so widely condemned as war criminals?
So do we all. But not to the extent that would support your claim of fundamental errors on such a major issue as this.
Yes, the intelligence community does. But let’s not let this thread get sidetracked about the war. Stay focused.
I think Trump consults about cyber in the age of computer with his son, Baron, because he is 10 and has computers and is unbelievably good at them. The intelligence community has been wrong before so they can’t be trusted on anything ever again.
Oh, you better believe the intel community is going to be god-like infallible as soon as the Republicans need them to validate their next agenda.
Cite.
My bold.
Is anyone keeping track of Trump’s promises to disclose stuff, discuss stuff, and/or hold a press conference-- and then not following through?
I know there was going to be one on how he planned to handle his businesses (that was postponed until January), and then I think there was going to be one talking about Melania’s immigration story…now there’s this one about the hacking and the hot, inside stuff he knows. Have there been other specific references to future revelatory events that did not materialize? (Or haven’t materialized yet?) I’m guessing this is just one more.
That person in post #160, above, is probably keeping track. 
Not that anyone here seems to care about this kind of stuff, but here is a very detailed analysis of the reported “Russian” hacking malware: US Govt Data Shows Russia Used Outdated Ukrainian PHP Malware
Conclusion: "The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don’t appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor exit nodes.
The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website."
Wrong again.
Well, shit, I can surely wait until Tuesday or Wednesday for Il Douche’s super special information. Hell, I could wait till Thursday, comes to that. Seeing as how I expect to be totally humiliated by the brilliance of his mind, and stuff…yeah, I can wait for that.
Responding to this and similar posts, it seems clear to me that the recent JAR has been misinterpreted as an attempt to show that Russia was behind the hacks. Critics like in those articles, and several on this board, are saying that the report doesn’t have new evidence to prove Russia’s involvement.
Where did you all get the idea that it was supposed to?
Here is Obama’s statement from the other day: “Finally, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are releasing declassified technical information on Russian civilian and military intelligence service cyber activity, to help network defenders in the United States and abroad identify, detect, and disrupt Russia’s global campaign of malicious cyber activities.”
It doesn’t say that the JAR is proof that Russia did something. It’s purpose, according to the President, is to help the public defend against this campaign of cyber attacks.
So the criticism that the report doesn’t prove something it was never intended to prove shows more about the ignorance of the critic - including the media organizations cited above - than it shows a weakness in the case against Russia.
I think Obama is playing this cool. Not hyping it, even shrugging to some degree. It clearly outlines a need for cyber-security research on our part, making funding less a problem. No need for major outrage and threats, everybody knows that none of the girls on the street are any better than they should be. Us included.
Did the Russians try to tilt the election? Probably. Did they actually interefere with our vote calibratrion? If they did, we should probably surrender, they are way too smart for us! But no, they didn’t.
Did it affect the election? To some degree, sure, it spread dissension in the ranks of the Dems. How many people were so pissed about Bernie getting the cold finger from the DNC that they didn’t vote for Hillary? And where do they live? Because if 100,000 if them lived in those crucial states, then, yeah…they swung the election. But I don’t know, and you don’t know, and sure as hell they didn’t know! Maybe they got lucky.
So the evidence for USA-only sanctions against Russia that will last 20 days and Putin reacted with “meh” is … we don’t know it was Russia, or anyone, but maybe it happened and maybe it didn’t?
In terms of impotency, it’s up there with the evacuation of the Saigon embassy.
Watching Trump and Putin’s reaction is proof enough for me.
I’m so glad that people who say there isn’t enough evidence are ready to commit so fully to their own conclusions that somehow don’t require any evidence.
I mean, worst case scenario is it’s just Russia fucking with us and Trump just has a cabinet loaded with crooked Russian stooges hellbent on dismantling the US government. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.
I think you’re missing the context here. I can’t speak for the other contrarians on this thread, particularly sense we probably voted differently. I voted for Obama twice and I voted for Hillary Clinton. I can also see how they’re getting played like a Russian violin, and I can see that their foreign policy is part of the post-1990 Cold War status quo – and I think it needs to be seriously re-thought.
Clinton’s and Obama’s foreign policy?
The irony is that Putin’s foreign policy is pre-1990 Cold War, which needs to be rethought, but quite a few Americans can’t get enough.
Russia has already won the cyber-war. They are laughing at us about it. Now Trump claims he knows what really happened and he’ll tell us this week. And the bad part is his followers will believe his bullshit, never mind the digital fingerprints say otherwise.
People just aren’t getting how fucking stupid Trump really is. Anyone who believes Putin has any desire to be friends with the US is living in a dream world.
Maybe if the CIA/FBI/another alphabet soup agency actually revealed the “digital fingerprints”…