Why isn't there more talk of the smoking gun memo?

[Dinner]

Re: Re: Why isn't there more talk of the smoking gun memo?

Originally posted by Spiffor
The liberal media is once again masking reality from real Americans

The corporate media bends over backwards not to piss off the administratio so they can keep getting exclusive interviews yet the far right continues to claim the "evil liberal media" is out to get htem.

[Agathon]

So, as I've said on numerous occasions, the justifications for the war were a fig leaf. We all know that many in the current US adminstration wanted to invade Iraq before Bush was even made President, and we know (from Bob Woodward no less, IIRC) that Iraq was first on the agenda when Bush came in to office.

So what does this have to do with 9/11?

Nothing. Well nothing unless the adminstration knew about 9/11 before it happened, and only the most hardened conspiracy theorists are saying that.

What does this have to do with Al Qaeda?

Nothing. One could make a case that the focus on Iraq was part of a long term strategy for removing terrorism by democratizing the Middle East (in fact that is the current excuse for the war).

However, that case is conclusively dismantled by the documented fact that the administration had almost no interest in Al Qaeda before 9/11. Poor old Richard Clarke talked himself blue in the face trying to get Rice and others to recognize the danger from Al Qaeda, and I have not see any reasonable refutation of his claims.

In conclusion, it just isn't clear why the administration was so focused on Iraq. Some speculate that they wish to simply extend the Monroe doctrine to the Middle East. I don't know about that, but at least it fits the available facts.

But of course the media are jumpy about reporting this. They have been under constant and (often, but not always) unfair attack from the right, and it is still the case that a large proportion of Americans believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 despite the fact that there is no evidence of that (and the fact that a Saddam Al Qaeda alliance is plainly ludicrous given the nature of the parties involved). So perhaps they are worried that, whatever the merits of the memo, that it is simply political suicide to attempt to do something about it.

On the other hand, it could be that they just don't know what to do. It is hard for a country such as the US, which invests so much moral authority in its system of government, to acknowledge that its leaders have engaged in such high crimes. Clinton's impeachment was certainly never an issue, since most Americans (correctly IMHO) regarded the whole thing as a disgraceful political stunt. Nixon's impeachment was for personal failings. He attempted to cheat within the system for his own political gain. Note that his disgraceful conduct w/regard to Vietnam was never going to be the reason for his removal from office – in that case the United States would have lost face. In Watergate, only Nixon lost face as it was seen as a matter of personal and not governmental failure. It's hard to know what to do when people you have put such trust in are content to blatantly and criminally abuse it.

This inability to admit national failure is not, I should add, unique to the USA. It's just that US failings in this respect have much bigger consequences for the world. During the Cold War most allies were prepared to put such acts behind them as a matter of national interest. But the rules have changed – it is no longer in the national interest of other than a few small banana republics and Britain (I was just going to include Britain in the banana republics, but I thought people wouldn't get the joke) to support US national interests.

Thus we risk falling back into the jungle of alliance politics. The US simply does not have the wherewithal or will to run the world, and it has now lost, probably for a generation, any moral authority (soft power) it once had among the rest of us. It's very dangerous.

[Dinner]

I have no doubt that if the main stream media actually did go after this very real story then we'd have the usual suspects here claiming it was proof the liberal media hated poor innocent Bush.

The corporate mergers and the reduction in the numbers of media companies has been as negative for consumers as the reduction in autocompanies was in the 1960s and 1970s. Quality went down, choices went down, prices went up. Only this time American consumers won't be able to rely upon the Japanese to come and restore competition to the market. We're going to be stuck with a handful of companies which control all the mass media and who don't want to aggressively persue certain stories out of fear of alienating powerful politicians who control their fate.

[Dinner]

Great stuff from the New York Times' Frank Rich:

This is the kind of lapdog news media the Nixon White House cherished. To foster it, Nixon's special counsel, Charles W. Colson, embarked on a ruthless program of intimidation that included threatening antitrust action against the networks if they didn't run pro-Nixon stories. Watergate tapes and memos make Mr. Colson, who boasted of "destroying the old establishment," sound like the founding father of today's blogging lynch mobs. He exulted in bullying CBS to cut back its Watergate reports before the '72 election. He enlisted NBC in pro-administration propaganda by browbeating it to repackage 10-day-old coverage of Tricia Nixon's wedding as a prime-time special. It was the Colson office as well that compiled a White House enemies list that included journalists who had the audacity to question administration policies.

Such is the equivalently supine state of much of the news media today that Mr. Colson was repeatedly trotted out, without irony, to pass moral judgment on Mr. Felt - and not just on Fox News, the cable channel that is actually run by the former Nixon media maven, Roger Ailes. "I want kids to look up to heroes," Mr. Colson said, oh so sorrowfully, on NBC's "Today" show, condemning Mr. Felt for dishonoring "the confidence of the president of the United States." Never mind that Mr. Colson dishonored the law, proposed bombing the Brookings Institution and went to prison for his role in the break-in to steal the psychiatric records of The Times's Deep Throat on Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg. The "Today" host, Matt Lauer, didn't mention any of this - or even that his guest had done jail time. None of the other TV anchors who interviewed Mr. Colson - and he was ubiquitous - ever specified his criminal actions in the Nixon years. Some identified him onscreen only as a "former White House counsel."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/opinion/12rich.html?hp

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
It will matter not at all in the United States. There is no one left who cares. "Move On" is our official credo.

Don't you find that alarming, that your leader is allowed to do what the hell he liked provided he isn't discovered for a few years? Don't you feel he should be brought to account for his actions? This clarifies that his actions were utterly criminal...

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


Don't you find that alarming, that your leader is allowed to do what the hell he liked provided he isn't discovered for a few years? Don't you feel he should be brought to account for his actions? This clarifies that his actions were utterly criminal...

Yeah, but in this part of the country I wouldn't be too open about it.

[Provost Harrison]

Still doesn't mean turning a blind eye to his actions is acceptable. It strikes me as more of an indictment on your fellow countryman...

[Ming]

Originally posted by Oerdin
We're going to be stuck with a handful of companies which control all the mass media and who don't want to aggressively persue certain stories out of fear of alienating powerful politicians who control their fate.

You mean companies like CBS and Newsweek

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Still doesn't mean turning a blind eye to his actions is acceptable. It strikes me as more of an indictment on your fellow countryman...

Oh really? If Tony knew that the whole "WMD" and "al_Qaida link" rationale for the invasion was a scam why did he go along with it? Doesn't that make him a sort of co-conspirator? Didn't you guys just re-elect him?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Donegeal
Ok, even if this memo is real, and the info fixed (in the american sense of the word), does it change the fact that the removal of Saddam was a good thing?

Don't get me wrong, if all this memo stuff proved to be true, I will most likely change my quote to "2004: Bush "

To answer your question, I'll ask another one:

Is the average Iraqis life better before or after the removal of Saddam?

[Ted Striker]

I'm really surprised the Brits are still with us. The only reason is because of Blair's personal support of Bush. The Brits population overwhelmingly does not support them being in Iraq.

We are in danger of losing support of our best ally.

Maybe not this time, but the next time we actually need their help. They will stick with us but that's only because they will honor their committment.

Oz will stay with us but that's only because they can maintain a low profile throughout this whole ordeal.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Agathon
So, as I've said on numerous occasions, the justifications for the war were a fig leaf. We all know that many in the current US adminstration wanted to invade Iraq before Bush was even made President, and we know (from Bob Woodward no less, IIRC) that Iraq was first on the agenda when Bush came in to office.

So what does this have to do with 9/11?

Nothing. Well nothing unless the adminstration knew about 9/11 before it happened, and only the most hardened conspiracy theorists are saying that.

What does this have to do with Al Qaeda?

Nothing. One could make a case that the focus on Iraq was part of a long term strategy for removing terrorism by democratizing the Middle East (in fact that is the current excuse for the war).

However, that case is conclusively dismantled by the documented fact that the administration had almost no interest in Al Qaeda before 9/11. Poor old Richard Clarke talked himself blue in the face trying to get Rice and others to recognize the danger from Al Qaeda, and I have not see any reasonable refutation of his claims.

In conclusion, it just isn't clear why the administration was so focused on Iraq. Some speculate that they wish to simply extend the Monroe doctrine to the Middle East. I don't know about that, but at least it fits the available facts.

But of course the media are jumpy about reporting this. They have been under constant and (often, but not always) unfair attack from the right, and it is still the case that a large proportion of Americans believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 despite the fact that there is no evidence of that (and the fact that a Saddam Al Qaeda alliance is plainly ludicrous given the nature of the parties involved). So perhaps they are worried that, whatever the merits of the memo, that it is simply political suicide to attempt to do something about it.

On the other hand, it could be that they just don't know what to do. It is hard for a country such as the US, which invests so much moral authority in its system of government, to acknowledge that its leaders have engaged in such high crimes. Clinton's impeachment was certainly never an issue, since most Americans (correctly IMHO) regarded the whole thing as a disgraceful political stunt. Nixon's impeachment was for personal failings. He attempted to cheat within the system for his own political gain. Note that his disgraceful conduct w/regard to Vietnam was never going to be the reason for his removal from office – in that case the United States would have lost face. In Watergate, only Nixon lost face as it was seen as a matter of personal and not governmental failure. It's hard to know what to do when people you have put such trust in are content to blatantly and criminally abuse it.

This inability to admit national failure is not, I should add, unique to the USA. It's just that US failings in this respect have much bigger consequences for the world. During the Cold War most allies were prepared to put such acts behind them as a matter of national interest. But the rules have changed – it is no longer in the national interest of other than a few small banana republics and Britain (I was just going to include Britain in the banana republics, but I thought people wouldn't get the joke) to support US national interests.

Thus we risk falling back into the jungle of alliance politics. The US simply does not have the wherewithal or will to run the world, and it has now lost, probably for a generation, any moral authority (soft power) it once had among the rest of us. It's very dangerous.

I was going to mention Clarke and the 9/11 information.

Agathon, unfortunatley, most people don't realize how much power has evaporated from us the past 3 years. People still think we're the top dog that brought down Nazi Germany singlehandely. It's like nothing else matters except World War 2.

People don't realize that every time Condi goes to yet ANOTHER country (she does this WEEKLY, now) and scolds them for lack of "democracy" people just laugh at her, and this just makes us look like even more of a joke.

We scold Syria for intervening in Lebanon, but here we are doing the exact same thing next door in Iraq. We scold the world for having nuclear weapons, yet here we are spending more than any other nation combined, in developing new ones. We invade another nation on the the pretense of an oppressive regime that tortures people, and then we go in and torture the same people we said we were there to save. We talk about freedom and liberty, yet we lock up innocent people indefinitley, and only release them when our closest allies ask for them back.

It is plain to see what the hell is going on here, we are doing stupid **** all over this planet. The last 3 years have shown nothing but hypocricy. And still nobody has owned up to it. I am ashamed to be an American.

[Agathon]

Never mind that Mr. Colson dishonored the law, proposed bombing the Brookings Institution and went to prison for his role in the break-in to steal the psychiatric records of The Times's Deep Throat on Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg. The "Today" host, Matt Lauer, didn't mention any of this - or even that his guest had done jail time. None of the other TV anchors who interviewed Mr. Colson - and he was ubiquitous - ever specified his criminal actions in the Nixon years. Some identified him onscreen only as a "former White House counsel.

That about says it all.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ming

You mean companies like CBS and Newsweek

It is nice that CBS is being spun off but it won't remain independent for long. Besides the general trend is consolidation down to a few hands and that lack of competition has never been good for consumers.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Oh really? If Tony knew that the whole "WMD" and "al_Qaida link" rationale for the invasion was a scam why did he go along with it? Doesn't that make him a sort of co-conspirator? Didn't you guys just re-elect him?

To preserve the alliance.