“And for no particular reason, except that Bush and Cheney just have the worst luck in the world. They are not responsible for this! They haven’t been responsible for anything that’s happened in the last 7.4 years!”

OTOH, Bill Clinton’s Penis Of Destruction has been responsible for more death and injury than any other single factor since the birth of National Socialism…It’s True!!!...

Of course they were “substantiated” - the Bushco had made damn sure that anybody who actually thought that gathering information and briefing the government using actual knowledge and data was their job was drummed out at the first hint of a truth that the Manifestly Destined didn’t want to be bothered with.

Liar, liar pants on fire!

“Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.”

            Secretary of State Madeline Albright, speaking in 1998

“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”

                        Nancy Pelosi

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.

                        Senator Jay Rockefeller

Bismarck - 1998 and 2002 are not only different years, but none of these people built a presidential administration’s case to go to preemptive war!

Other than being completely different, it’s exactly the same.  You got us, you rascal!

“Bismarck - 1998 and 2002 are not only different years, but none of these people built a presidential administration’s case to go to preemptive war!”

The real difference is that in 1998 the World Trade Center in New York was still standing and a liberal Democrat was in the White House.

Shorter Bismarck:  ‘9/11 Change EVERYTHING!’ followed up with a warm yellow puddle on the ground…

Because, of course, America!, nay The World!!!,  Has Never Faced! such an Incredibly Awesome and Dangerous Force For Evil like Global IslamoFascistoCommunoLibrul Terraism!!!

(which might be true if we pretend that history only started with the <strike>election</strike> appointment of George “Sacred and Manly Codpiece of Justice” Bush to POTUS…)

I do have you ask you a couple of questions, Oh Wingnut of Dephi:

Since you think invading Iraq was the most important action in the history of the US, and knowing, as we do, that the NeoCons had been planning exactly that about 5mins after Colin Powell ended the Gulf War, do you think GHW Bush was wrong to leave without eliminating Saddam?

If Bill Clinton had used the information GW Bush used to sell an invasion of Iraq in 1994, would you have given him your unqualified support?

If Bill Clinton had invaded in 1994, and 14-years later there were still 100-or so American soldiers returning home in body bags every month as a result, would you still be eager for America to remain there, with no end in sight?

If you had children of the right age, would you encourage them to join the armed services and request duty in Bill Clinton’s Iraq war that had by now been going on for the last 14-years?...

Are you too chickenshit to answer a few very basic, very straightforward questions like these?...

Mike—Go back to contemplating your sex life.

Quoting myself referring to Bismarck - “Are you too chickenshit to answer a few very basic, very straightforward questions like these?…”

And it seems obvious the answer is YES.

Only four, nice, simple, straight forward, yes/no questions regarding an important issue facing America.  And you either can’t or won’t answer them because it will expose your beliefs for the “paper tigers” they really are…isn’t that about the size of it?

I’ll give you MY answers if it will motivate you…

1. GHW Bush and Colin Powell were absolutely correct to end the war when they did.  The last few years amply prove the correctness of their decision.

2. If Clinton had tried that crap, I would have been in favor of impeachment, which I was against when it only had to do with the presidential dick…

3. If the war was still going 14-years later, you think I would be rah, rah, sis-boom-bah?  Are you kidding?

4. My daughter turns 18 next year.  Will I suggest she join up?  Only if I have a tumor in my head.  If there’s a draft?  America is not the only country on earth, and if we have to pack it in and get out, we’re gone…

Mike—You are rude and arrogant and vulgar.  You comments toward me have been consistently insulting.

If and when you become respectful, I will engage you.

“one president who: covered his Presidential Daily Briefs with notes, action instruction and follow-up orders”

We will never know all of what those notes said, will we.

Thursday, September 8, 2005; Posted: 5:16 p.m. EDT (21:16 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN)—Former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was sentenced Thursday to community service and probation and fined $50,000 for illegally removing highly classified documents from the National Archives and intentionally destroying some of them.

“Mike—You are rude and arrogant and vulgar.  You comments toward me have been consistently insulting.

If and when you become respectful, I will engage you.”

I will admit to provoking you.  But I certainly did not mean to hurt your feelings…

“Shorter Bismarck:  ‘9/11 Change EVERYTHING!’ followed up with <strike>a warm yellow puddle on the ground</strike>…”

Okay, I’ll take that back.  How’s this:

“...followed up with manly action worthy of a True American Patriot...”

Is that better?  Or are you still too <strike>chickenshit</strike> cowardly to answer my questions?

(BTW, “chickenshit” is certainly NOT vulgar but a commonly used and universally understood phrase in Am/Can English…)

“We will never know all of what those notes said, will we.”

Bismarck my friend, are you as concerned with the missing gigabytes of Whitehouse Emails?  With the destruction of GITMO interrogation notes?  With any of the countless other examples of either hiding information or outright destruction of information that rightly belongs to us as America citizens?...

“They held out for a long time because, inter alia, they hated to have the Clinton PDBs (which appear as I have described them) compared to the Bush PDBs which are largely unmarked; Bush had reinstated the previous practice of a verbal brief from the DCI.”

Switching to verbal briefs eliminated the chance that a childish doodle - drawn by a bored George Bush on the only piece of paper within easy reach - would ever escape. 

And it’s probably for the best.  I don’t think anybody wants a clearer idea of what goes on in that man’s head…

I guess Bismarck just doesn’t have the guts to answer any of my simple questions.  It must be because of a lack of conviction on his part.  After all, they are nice, polite, simple, straightforward questions that cut to the heart of what he believes in.  So his lack of response is very troubling…

I’m sure that fact says something very bad about his moral character.  I wonder how a great Conservative intellectual like WFB would have characterized Bismarck’s weak convictions…?

The Clinton administration clearly desired regime change in Iraq, although he never mentioned direct military intervention in 1998 when he signed the Iraqi Liberation Act.

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/11/01/981101-in.htm

However, after the attacks on September 11, and with all of the intelligence data available regarding weapons development by the Hussein regime and the presence of Abu Musab
al Zarqawi in Iraq, the desire for regime change became urgent.  Waiting for an Iraqi uprising was impractical.

“It is a part of the established record that the Bush administration did nothing after receiving the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” PDB.”

There were thirty-six days between the briefing and the attack on September 11, 2001.  I don’t know what you think could have been done in that time.

There was an earlier attack by al Qaeda on the World Trade Center in New York in 1993.  For the next seven years, the Clinton administration responded with indictments.

“The Clinton administration clearly desired regime change in Iraq, although he never mentioned direct military intervention in 1998 when he signed the Iraqi Liberation Act.”

...still no answer to even ONE of my simple, straightforward, polite questions…

“Which is really quite ironic, because you know who else goes immediately to the “blow shit up, ask questions later” stuff whenever they’re faced with a geopolitical problem?

Terrorists.”

When the terraists do it, they have to scrounge up some kind of explosive, put some crude junk together, make do with some primitive detonator, etc.  So they can only kill 25-100 people at a time.

When the US blows shit up, we use incredibly expensive ultra-high-tech airplanes and missiles carrying the most sophisticated warheads ever produced in the history of mankind.  So we can kill hundreds or thousands with every attack.

So you see, we’re nothing at all like those dirty islamofascistocommunolibrul terraists…

“Hopelessly partisan Bismarck doesn’t fathom that. He appears to be one of the people who equates security with foreign military action.”

It appears that military action has been more effective than the criminal justice system.

Al Qaeda and other terrorists are at war with us.  They have been attacking us for years with the support of sovereign states like Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Iran etc.  They are not a bunch of pickpockets.

I guess Bismarck still doesn’t have the guts to answer any of my simple questions…

“Bismarck doesn’t know what a President could do in the 36 days between receiving the warning of a possible attack and the date when the attack comes. Should we really go into this? Things that could have been done:
- various federal agencies could have been instructed to share information about terrorists, to make sure that if one agency knew a terrorist was in the country, and another agency was looking for said person, they would be talking to each other
- Airport security could have been strengthened. And here by “strengthened”, I mean “called into existence”, since pre-9/11 airport security was pathetic. (And I don’t mean the kind of silly security measures that are in place now, like forbidding nail clippers and water bottles.)
- Air patrols around the country could have been increased, and NORAD could, in general, have been put on alert.”

Raw Data
Thursday, April 08, 2004

The following is an excerpt of Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on April 8, 2004:

RICE: In this context, I want to address in some detail one of the briefing items that we did receive, since its content has been frequently mischaracterized.
On August 6, 2001, the president’s intelligence briefing included a response to questions that he had earlier raised about any Al Qaida intentions to strike our homeland.  The briefing team reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly dating from the 1990s, regarding possible Al Qaida plans to attack inside the United States. It referred to uncorroborated reporting that, from 1998, that a terrorist might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft in an attempt to blackmail the government into releasing U.S.-held terrorists who had participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
This briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information.  And it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles.  Despite the fact that the vast majority of the threat information we received was focused overseas, I was concerned about possible threats inside the United States.
And on July 5th, Chief of Staff Andy Card and I met with Dick Clarke, and I asked Dick to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond, even though we did not have specific threats to the homeland.
Later that same day, Clarke convened a special meeting of his CSG, as well as representatives from the FAA, the INS, Customs and the Coast Guard.  At that meeting, these agencies were asked to take additional measures to increase security and surveillance.
Throughout the period of heightened threat information, we worked hard on multiple fronts to detect, protect against and disrupt any terrorist plans or operations that might lead to an attack.
RICE: For instance, the Department of Defense issued at least five urgent warnings to U.S. military forces that Al Qaida might be planning a near-term attack and placed our military forces in certain regions on heightened alert.
The State Department issued at least four urgent security advisers and public worldwide cautions on terrorist threats, enhanced security measures at certain embassies, and warned the Taliban that they would be held responsible for any Al Qaida attack on U.S. interests. The FBI issued at least three nationwide warnings to federal, state and law enforcement agencies and specifically stated that, although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas targets, attacks against the homeland could not be ruled out.
The FBI tasked all 56 of its U.S. field offices to increase surveillance of known suspects of terrorists and to reach out to known informants who might have information on terrorist activities.
The FAA issued at least five civil aviation security information circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking.
(Emphasis mine)

My daughter turns 18 next year.  Will I suggest she join up?  Only if I have a tumor in my head.  If there’s a draft?  America is not the only country on earth, and if we have to pack it in and get out, we’re gone…

Mine are 10 and 12, and the 12 year old, peacenik that he be, would go Grean Acres insane in rural Alberta living with Nazasrenes, BUT the plans are forming to facilitate a cross-border “visit” or even “adoption” by Uncle Dearest if it comes to a draft.

“BUT the plans are forming to facilitate a cross-border “visit” or even “adoption” by Uncle Dearest if it comes to a draft.”

...I just remembered my wife has several relatives living in a couple different provinces in Canuckistan.  Keeping my daughter alive might even be easier than I thought. 

I have heard, however, that Canada is now more likely to cooperate with US officials and may turn over kids who attempt to escape the draft.  So I guess the solution would be to leave early before the gate crashes closed…