Shaun Waterman of UPI on 9/11 report: No Iraq link to al-Qaida:
The report of the joint congressional inquiry into the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, to be published Thursday, reveals U.S. intelligence had no evidence that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, or that it had supported al-Qaida, United Press International has learned.
"The report shows there is no link between Iraq and al-Qaida," said a government official who has seen the report."
And yet the pro-war crowd has been screaming "Have you forgotten?!" for months now. No, I haven't forgotten that none of the hijackers were from Iraq or that Saddam wasn't involved. I certainly hadn't forgotten that. Some folks need to get out the hot sauce, cause I've heard that crow is a bit bitter.
The revelation is likely to embarrass the Bush administration, which made links between Saddam's support for bin Laden — and the attendant possibility that Iraq might supply al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction — a major plank of its case for war.
The Administration isn't the only entity that should be embarrassed. Those pundits and media types who hyped it up on networks that bill themselves as "fair and balanced" owe the American people an apology for promoting a myth and contributing to the lies that cost nearly 300 American lives and left over 1000 wounded. As each of the justifications used for this war continue to topple, the shame and disgust I feel for those screamed loudest in their bloodlust, cannot be properly expressed in words. People are dead. Those who promoted this lie contributed to these losses.
This entry also posted at Stand Down.
was beginning to feel like an island unto myself.
Just like this website.
people are still reluctant to speak the truth.
You have to know the truth to speak it.
Posted by Anonymous on July 27, 2003 04:59 AM
I hate to say it, but I think this site has gotten irrelevant. No one but the choir and the trolls come in here, and all we’re doing is giving a daily/weekly tally of the coming catastrophe to people who will leave this site with the same thoughts they had before.
We already have enough information to convince reasonable people of the stupidity of American foreign policy, if only we can find a way to package it so that we’re not immediately dismissed as traitors. We should either talk tactics amongst ourselves or seek out other people to try to persuade them there’s another way.
Spending so much of our time gathering more and more information shows that we’re not serious when we predict a disaster from the present course.
Posted by Vin Carreo on July 27, 2003 05:50 AM
Presumably, Vin, people spend a certain amount of time reading blogs, some time writing on them, and some time doing something else.
Can’t you count two people up above on the responses who just said it made a difference to them just to find a site about “NoWar?”
As for this idea that all we need is some information and we can change things–not so. Power is evidently a structured thing; I think that most of the time most people in most societies know that at least some of the sacred myths their people swear by are lies. Maybe they honestly don’t think the majority of their peers share their doubts–but facing the facts hurts when you can’t do anything immediate about them, and people everywhere invest in other survival strategies, hypocricy and wishful thinking ranking high among them. We all recognize that the terrible things going on aren’t the result of a simple mistake or mere stupidity; someone is deriving big benefits and will presumably fight hard to keep them. Who wants to be a martyr to the revolution–unless they are sure a revolution will in fact follow? We’ve had a Thought Police in this country since World War I (and private vigilante versions of them long before that–going back to the foundation of slavery in the colonies at least…) and after WWII they got pretty serious and pretty capable at defusing any significant alternative to the Powers That Be. If one is badly needed though, it may still form–by means that must be completely unpredictable, or it would be predicted and blocked. I think the ruling class is clearly in the grip of senility and stagnation and it is only a matter of time before the people take over–but it is all too likely that will happen only after terror (from above) and bloodshed, mostly ours even if we duck. But unless the rulers get wise (and I think if they could they would have by now) it has to happen, because they get stupider every day.
I for one would not care whether we have monarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, or what have you–if any of these regimes ever showed any evidence of ruling wisely and well. They don’t; we need democracy because if you want the job of government done right you have to do it yourself. We have never really had democracy but the serious aspiration to it has in the past wrung some honesty, some competence, and some greatness out of our elites.
The thing is they think they are immune to democracy now, knowing how to prevent it, and have no incentive to be anything but petty incompetent thieves. They have to slip up; sooner or later some series of slip-ups is going to rip through all the layers of insulation and misdirection and they’ll have an unstoppable revolution on their hands; it will be a long bloodbath because the new society will have to develop its leadership from the ground up.
So let the stupid trolls come here and smirk. Even when they are clearly wrong they’ll always know they are right; this is why they have no guilt and no shame–shame requires that you respect to and listen to some opinion other than their own. As a recent Doonesbury pointed out, thinking progressive people always do listen and that is why we are easy to distract and is miss. But we come back for more punishment because we can’t live with the obvious lies.
Most of us certainly aren’t paid well enough to do so, and they can’t bribe everyone 1) cause there is not enough wealth in the world–wouldn’t that work out nicely, the bosses _bribe_ all the workers to keep quiet–that’s that aristocracy ruling wisely and well I was alluding to–nope, they can’t do it, they don’t figure they have to, and 2) they don’t want to because to them the whole thing is about coming ahead of other people, not living well, so the whole point is to be better off. Can’t be aristocrats if the peasants have all the same stuff can they? So the majority of people will always have serious grievances, and always have their hands on all the monkey wrenches that are needed to make the economic machine go–or can stop it. We get the word “sabotage” from working people who stuffted their “sabots”-wooden shoes-into the machines that put them out of work.
So I presume you are out there, Vin, planning tactics and trying to persuade others. I figure when the opportunity comes a lot more people will already know enough to jump on the bandwagon than you’ll ever find admitting it today. Right now most people know, correctly, they will suffer to no point if they step out of line. Brave people who do it anyway are the inspiration. It is not so very brave to come here to this site and say these things–but who knows? It is still a risk, and it may still bring benefits, like to those two people who were grateful.
It is depressing sometimes to see how few posts there are. Then again–the page loads fast nowadays! It is not hard to check it.
illegitimus non carborundum, y’all.
Posted by Marcus Friday on July 27, 2003 07:05 AM
Hey Marcus, how do those sour grapes taste? Or are you too busy making up desperate excuses? The Romans waited for a revolution too.
How pathetic it is to be reduced to rejoicing over the fact that your movement is so out of sight that people have to stumble on it to discover it. Only to find out it’s really out of the picture.
Posted by Anonymous Coward on July 27, 2003 05:28 PM
its getting a little lonely here and perhaps a bit……irrelavent. Might as well join the tin-hat brigade over on Indy Media.
Posted by Anonymous on July 24, 2003 11:28 PM
We now take control of your blog for an urgent message on civil disobedience against friends of the Republican Party.
How to force congress to pass a prescription drug benefit underMedicare Part B
Now you have the opportunity to repeal HR 1/ S 1 theRepublican prescription drug plan and replace it with a prescription drug benefit under Medicare Part B
Call Eckerd Pharmacy Corporate Headquarters at 1-800-325-3737 and tell them unless they can get the congress to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare part B covering 80percent of medication with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test, no coverage gaps, you will not buy from them and you will tell your friends also not to buy from them.
Call CVS Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 888 607-4287 and tell them unless they can get the congress to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare part B covering 80percent of medication with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test, no coverage gaps, you will not buy from them and you will tell your friends also not to buy from them.
Call Walgreens Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 888 2892273 and tell them unless they can get the congress to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare part B covering 80percent of medication with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test, no coverage gaps, you will not buy from them and you will tell your friends also not to buy from them.
Also read and sign the petition at http://www.boycott-republicans.com which covers a comprehensive progressive agenda.
How to stop the Republican initiated governor recall.
Hello
Several Republicans will run for Governor of California in a recall election. They have every right to run for governor.
Because the Republicans have decided to do this recall action I have a right to decide not to buy a car alarm called the Viper from Directed Electronics, a company that one of the candidates Darrell Issa works for.
I have a right to tell others not to buy products from Directed Electronics for this reason and call them at 1 800 876 0800 and demand that they get every Republican candidate to withdraw or they will lose a lot of sales. So if you want to stop the Republicans from running, call Directed electronics and call car alarm dealers that sell the Viper and let the civil disobedience begin.
Also boycott the Terminator 3 and tell the local movie theatre manager why.
Also read and sign the petition at http://www.boycott-republicans.com which covers a comprehensive progressive agenda.
Posted by stolenelectioncoin.com on July 25, 2003 05:28 AM
It just strikes me that the only posts that have proved to be really irrelevant were the ones that called this blog dead and irrelevant.
How many of those have we had yet ? 10’s, 100’s ? And the blog is still here and keeping people updated on the latest discoveries.
How we identified long before the US army that a guerilla was forming on the ground.
Maybe the CIA should watch this forum as our intel has proven time and time against to be spot on. As was the case with the points made before the war.
The only points not materializing (yet) was the possibility of civil war (Can still come about after the US pulled out) and the general acceptance that the US would win within days. (It took weeks remember).
ONe of the major predictions was that Iraq was the wrong place, for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.
Liberia and the extension in troop deployment clearly show that the US does NOT enough forces or power to fight in another theater. That is without a complete mobilisation of reserves which would hurt the economy (is that one still alive) very deeply. Not to mention Bush reelection chances.
North Korea know this and we can assume that this conflict has been settled now. The US puffs and huffs but there is not a Damn thing they can do about the Norths nukes. By the time the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts have been sorted out North Korea will be nuclear state just like Pakistan and we all know how the USA treats this KNOWN supported of Taliban and AL-Quedaterrorism.
Iran is in a more difficult situation but even they can slowly push the bounderies as a full scale war with Iran is definately NOT in the cards right now. With the insurgence in Iraq harrassing supply lines and the strike capability of Iranian 800miles missles (Um quasr and kuwait port) the US Iraqi expedition force is strained to the point of being funerable.
Any supply ships want to run the gaunlet along a silkworm antishipping missle invested Iranian coast ? Not to mention ducking the irianian scarab like speedboats fitted with all kinds of antishipping weapons. Mines, torpedo’s and missles.
If Iran is smart they will play the IAEA along and bank on the US being bogged down in Iraq for some 1 to 2 years and perfect their chemical weapons and finalized their nuclear capability.
That will be the end of the US Iran adventure.
Of course the US can make a Hitleresc gamble and attack Iran pretty soon anyway. A win over the regular forces will create a quamire of sabotage and guerilla warfare that will drain the USr esources and allow Europe and Asia to get a decisive economic advantage over the USA (Phyrric victory for the US)
A loss would kick out the US of the middle east and probaly even loose them Saudi Arabia. Isreal will than shit its pants like you won’t believe. From that time onward any conflict with Israel will be a full nuclear/chemical one and because Israel is rather small she will be completely devasted even when she wins the war itself (Another Phyrric victory). The Arab nations will relocate their centres of society in the vast emptyness of their countries and rebuild.
The US will then try to hold on to afghanistan with everything she got and honestly the others will let the US do that. Afghanistan is not of interest in the resource department and the US forces are landlocked in that area. Surrounded by enemies and shacky friends (Pakistan)
The US may do two things then, put down a token force which is irrelevant from a military point of few (A bit like now) or heavily re-inforce the far far forward outpost. ? A great opportunity for the enemy to pound your forces who will be struggling all the way to keep standing. With the possibly outcomes. Either the enemy captures significant quantities of your supplies and weapon systems or your sizable expedition force will be decimated causing the body bag syndrome to rear its head or even weaken the US forces significantly.
Naturally all non-serving members of the US government will claim that this is intended to be a war on two fronts making the mistake that the whole working core of the second front theory is to devide the forces of the opponent over two significantly seperated fronts NOT YOUR OWN FORCES WITH THE ENEMYCENTRED BETWEEN THEM.
Anyways, in case of conflict the US would be faced with a choice. Either tactically retreat from Afghanistan, losing face and also losing all the gains made in the previous War on Terror years and losing its grip on the middle east OR gamble a lot on the Afghan card and hope like hell that nothing goes wrong. By this time I don’t know what China will do, if they are in gambling mood then they might use the situation to make gains in the afghan scene or with respect to Taiwan. Neither of which can be fully answered by the USA. If she would answer these than China and North Korea would make a pact and Attack US position in both Taiwan, Okinawa and South Korea. All when the bulk of combat forces would be located away in Iraq and Iran/Afghanistan. This will loose important support points of the US army and Navy and make the supply lines to Iraq and Afghanistan immense. Anyways, this China card it to uncertain to comtemplate so we;ll just leave it out for now. But we shouldn’t think that China won’t act when she feel she can give a humiliating blow to the US and thus establish herself as the dominant Asian force at the expense of the US superpower status. When the blow is humiliating enough than the Superstatus of the US will be history too.
But many would claim that the US would win decisively in Iran. Okay lets continue along that road.
US wins in Iran after some 3 months of fighting. Given the character of the win in Iraq and Afghanistan she will not be able to control nearly enough to decisively combat insurgencies. With the troops already being stretched by Iraq alone they will be overly stretch by the many times greater area of Iran in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan.
But what is “better” about this situations is that now the three areas of Afghanistan (North Pakistan), Iran and Iraq are linked. With the insufficient control of US forces this means that the rebels will be able to capitalize on this situation. Especially since the bulk of the border is with the former sovjet union. Anyone can spell; badly guarded arms dumps in a lively black market ?
Also a lot of pissed of men with the old security structures with inside knowlegde destroyed. Now we see the rise of a insurgence movement you won’t beleive. Expect multiple attacks on isolated US outpost which scare the living daylights out of US soldiers. Much like the Russian soldiers hated the mountain outposts they manned. These formed a 100 small scale Khe Sanh’s. But more importantly expect multiple attack son oil installations. Main target will be to stop oil comming from Iraq, Iran and the former sovjet states. By this the US will not be able to finance their war by selling the stolen oil. This will impact on the US budget and open up a second front that the insurgencies will not have on their side. The economic front, let Europe and Asia take on the crippled US in the economic arena while the insurgencies themselfs will take the war of attrition to the US forces. A war in a land where the US army doesn speak the language and where the people in general dislike or hate the US soldiers. Sound Familiar ?
Now the election comes, things have gone sour. People may elect a pacifictic president and all is lost. They may choose a warmongering president and everything will get worse. We’ll see carpet bombing of Terrorist hide-outs. This will be answered by terrorist attacks against US targets in Indonesia and north-east africa. US companies abroad will be become regular targets of Al-Queda attacks. No more forces are left to conquer these lands in name of national security. These will become CIA secret ops. This will turn the opinion of the peoples of these land against the USA. AL-Queda will win this round and if they try hard enough the will kill a number of possibly valuable CIA agents. This CIA agency is now trully blind, as if she ever could see clearly anyway.
With the area of insurgence getting near to Saudi Arabia the only nation able to stabilize the oil market is severly threatened. Expect sabotage activities here.
US will claim she is defending freedom and peace on earth and will loudly ask of the western allies why they aren’t helping. The western allies now have a remarkable choice.
Either help with their limited resources and be subject to threads to national security (terror) with the possible outcome of losing all influence in that region. ALso risking the fury of their populace who will definately NOT support helping the USA in her push for global dominance. Watch the “You broke, now you pay for it “- mode gaining popularity.
OR
The westerns allies see a opportunity to let the US drown and advance her own interest at the expense of those of the US. Surely teh US will huff and puff all she can but we have already established that she has no more forces left to do anything militarily about this. Economic sanctions ? That will be suicide from the US perspective. In short, when this happens the US is trully fucked. Maybe bomb a few EU cities ? France and Germany will retaliate and nuke a few east board cities. Not a option.
Okay the US will start dealing. Great, the EU allies will milk the US for all they can which will weaken the war effort even more.
But maybe just maybe the Blairs, Berlusconi and Aznar will join in the US war on everybody. What can these bring into the US army that she doesn’t already have. Common Sense maybe, but by that time it is already to late. But okay some 75.000troops (no French and German troops) are delivered by the western allies and shipped to the middle east. RED FLAG ISNOW BEING WAVED IN FRONT OF THE EYES OF CHINA. This is al whole lot of foreign troop on china’s backend doorstep. There is no way that China is going to let the western powers conquer and control all of the middle eastern oil. Anybody want to pick a fight with a 1.000.000 strong Chinese nuclear equiped expedition force when only controlling some 300.000 troops yourself in outspokenly hostile lands ? Even Russia will be alittle uncomfortable with this open grasp at the worlds most sought after resource. This is not a good mix.
Of course the peoples of these western allies were never behind this endeavour and expect opposition in these lands to peak. We have killed a few politicians for less in the last years and expect this to be possibility. If anything these western troops will be unmotivated, reluctant and undependable by virtue of the limitations put on them by the various parlements. They will not equal 75.000 fanatical Texas rangers with a lust for blood. And even they would not be really tipping the scales. Just more canon fodder for the insurgencies.
In the end of the day this situation can go only one way.
US gambles and has an extremely high change of general defeat and loss of her superstatus.
US hedges her gains and does nothing for the comming years. In this time both North Korea and Iran will have nuclear wapons and the US will still be bogged down in Aghanistan.
What ever happens to Iraq in the last situation is unclear as of yet.
I’ll be checking the CIA and MI6 reports over the next couple of months to see if anybody copy-past these comments.
Wouter
Posted by Wouter on July 25, 2003 05:40 AM
That wouter thing is back with more endless babble about vacuous claims and irrelevant garbage that accomplishes nothing other than filling up space.
This website is pathetic. A million wouter things won’t change that.
But the farce goes on.
Posted by Anonymous Coward on July 25, 2003 03:32 PM
Well, my other babbling turned out to be true. So why don’t we wait and see.
Obviously you’re willing to sacrifice another few dozen of US soldiers before your are ready to swallow your pride and see the truth.
I’m not, so who’s is the moron here?
Wouter
Posted by Wouter on July 28, 2003 04:16 AM
What you said. ‘Fair and Balanced’ my sorry ass…but I suspect they’d eat a mountain of crow before the words “we wuz wrong” would leave their lips. Kind of like that episode of Happy Days where Fonzie had to admit he was wrong and spent the whole show trying to get the words out…
7/25/2003 8:11:00
likely to embarrass the Bush administration
Shameless people aren’t embarrassed by anything.
Posted by Anonymous on July 26, 2003 03:33 PM
A friend referred me to this site and I thought I would come through. I’m a blogger out of Chicago, and you would think that a pretty liberal enclave like chicago would be a comfortable place to speak freely about the craptastic state of the union and the pretender to the throne in the white house. I feel like a complete schmuck for throwing away my Gore T-shirt. I would have had “don’t look at me, I voted for” embroidered on it and worn in it proudly.
I don’t fully agree with everyone on the site but I’m just so thrilled you’re here. was beginning to feel like an island unto myself. Even as the president’s house of cards tumbles, people are still reluctant to speak the truth.
Posted by freedompoodle on July 27, 2003 01:41 AM
“Maybe we should thank the Democrats for shedding their moderate clothing to reveal their true Swinging-Seventies selves.”
http://www.majorityleader.gov/news.asp?FormMode=Detail&ID;=127
Greetings from Glorious Majority Leader!!!!
Posted by jim on July 27, 2003 02:12 AM
Seems they retracted that article. Read this:
http://www.calpundit.com/archives/001759.html
Also, please note my new blog URL. Sorry I haven’t been posting here in so long. Other stuff and my new blog have been keeping me busy…
Posted by Kerim Friedman on July 27, 2003 03:17 AM