Offering constructive criticism to the social cripples in our midst since early 2005.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
Why the Butler Report is not the last word on the subject.

So Josh writes:

The Butler Report -- in an explicit effort to retrospectively validate the president's '16 words' in the 2003 state of the union -- claimed that the British judgment had not relied on the forged Niger papers. However, there was an earlier British parliamentary inquiry in September 2003 -- before the issue became such a political hot potato. And that report makes clear that most of the British judgment was based on the forged documents*

****
*[link to earlier post] As I say, there's a lot of jargon and bureaucratic gobbledygook here. But the key point is that the authors of the earlier report felt free to be candid about what the Butler Report chose to keep hidden -- namely, that most of the British judgment about 'uranium from Africa' was based on the phony documents the Butler Report claims had nothing to do with their judgment.

Let me get this straight:

1) The Brits commissioned a second report solely to validate Bush's claim (and those prove Wilson a liar and wrong)?

2) The second report - obviously later in time and benefiting from the addition of new information, more intel and research, and more documents, is somehow less valid than the earlier report?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So Josh writes:

Let me get this straight:

1) The Brits commissioned a second report solely to validate Bush's claim (and those prove Wilson a liar and wrong)?

This may sound odd, but the Brits are actually more concerned with Tony Blair's performance than George Bush's, Blair being the Prime Minister and all.

2) The second report - obviously later in time and benefiting from the addition of new information, more intel and research, and more documents, is somehow less valid than the earlier report?

Imagine, if you will, that Brit Hume and Robert Rubin jointly wrote a report about George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard, and then somewhat later, with additional materials come to light and more research, Dan Rather and Howard Dean wrote another report. Which would you trust?

eta: You'll also note that Marshall talks about the report of the Iraq Survey Group, written after the others and on the basis of what we found after we controlled the country.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Look, you're not trying very hard. The statement is not bigoted. It's reportage. Someone living in the Arab world is telling you what he sees, not what Arabs are capable of.

And I don't recall what I said about military force, but the point was that we have pursued policies -- military and otherwise -- that are effectively delegitimizing democracy among Arabs and strengthening other constituencies. It's not just the invasion of Iraq, though clearly that's a part of it. It's also our support for undemocratic regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, among others, and the perception that our policies value Israeli lives and interests more than those of Palestinians.



I think you are taking one sentence out of context and misreading it. I don't think the author of that e-mail meant to speak definitively about all Arabs. I think he is taking Yemen to be typical.

To sum: I point out an obviously stupid and bigoted statement and T-Rex defends it by pointing out an extraneous issue, instead of acknowledging the obvious.

Why are working so hard to fulminate about what's not being said instead of trying to engage with what is?



No. It's neither bigoted nor stupid. I hope it's wrong, but I'm afraid that the author is seeing something real.



But of course it's more complicated than that. It's hardly just a question of military force. Under Hussein, there was very little civil society in Iraq, so it should be no surprise that the transition has been rough. We tried to support the opposition, and there just wasn't much there to support. I suspect things would have gone if the country had been run under UN auspices instead of by the Cato and Heritage Foundations. That would have been a use of military force, too.

I know I saw your Avatar moving. Why did you stop it? Now that Hank has run out of permeatations my desire to look at the posts has dimished greatly. Moving Avatars would change that.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
. . . I love . . . the . . . left.

Penske, everyone knows that you've retired from socking, but they also know that your Shape Shifter sock was grandfathered in. Be careful. As Shifty goes, so goes the Penske.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
I know I saw your Avatar moving. Why did you stop it? Now that Hank has run out of permeatations my desire to look at the posts has dimished greatly. Moving Avatars would change that.

I'm tellin' you, man, it's all about the Apricots.

[sgtclub]

• For instance, how can Josh say "most of the British judgement about uranium from Africa was based on the phony documents"? Take the September '03 UK Parliamentary Report Marshall is so enthused about. TPM likes it so because it ostensibly makes plainer, as compared to the Butler report, that one of the British intel sources (assorted documentary evidence) was based on the forgeries. But that very same report states unequivocally:
  
  "The SIS stated that the documents did not affect its judgement of its second source and consequently the SIS continues to believe that the Iraqis were attempting to negotiate the purchase of uranium from Niger. We have questioned the SIS about the basis of its judgement and conclude that it is reasonable."
  
  So that's two sources; one ostensibly FOPT tainted and the other not. From this, how does one divine that "most" of the British judgement was based on forgeries? Depends on what the definition of "most" is, I guess.But wait, there's more. Josh neglects to remind us of the Congo finding in the Butler report:
  
  Quoting, at section 499:
  
  "There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached."
  
  Recall, Bush's SOTU referenced Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Africa generally--not just Niger. So that's three separate sources of intel the Brits had regarding Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa. One would appear to be FOPT tainted. Two weren't.
  
  
  Josh's credibility would be bolstered significantly if he accepted that he never struck gold on this story. He tried, tooth and nail, to score a grand slam. He never did. That's OK, and he may have opportunities in the future on other stories. But in life, when you get something wrong, it's good to admit it, hang up your gloves, and move on to the next thing. Instead, Josh appears to prefer to repeat lies to his overly credulous readers. That's really too bad.

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/004682.html

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sgtclub

• For instance, how can Josh say "most of the British judgement about uranium from Africa was based on the phony documents"? Take the September '03 UK Parliamentary Report Marshall is so enthused about. TPM likes it so because it ostensibly makes plainer, as compared to the Butler report, that one of the British intel sources (assorted documentary evidence) was based on the forgeries. But that very same report states unequivocally:
  
  "The SIS stated that the documents did not affect its judgement of its second source and consequently the SIS continues to believe that the Iraqis were attempting to negotiate the purchase of uranium from Niger. We have questioned the SIS about the basis of its judgement and conclude that it is reasonable."
  
  So that's two sources; one ostensibly FOPT tainted and the other not. From this, how does one divine that "most" of the British judgement was based on forgeries? Depends on what the definition of "most" is, I guess.But wait, there's more. Josh neglects to remind us of the Congo finding in the Butler report:
  
  Quoting, at section 499:
  
  "There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached."
  
  Recall, Bush's SOTU referenced Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Africa generally--not just Niger. So that's three separate sources of intel the Brits had regarding Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa. One would appear to be FOPT tainted. Two weren't.
  
  
  Josh's credibility would be bolstered significantly if he accepted that he never struck gold on this story. He tried, tooth and nail, to score a grand slam. He never did. That's OK, and he may have opportunities in the future on other stories. But in life, when you get something wrong, it's good to admit it, hang up your gloves, and move on to the next thing. Instead, Josh appears to prefer to repeat lies to his overly credulous readers. That's really too bad.

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/004682.html

Josh has been over this:

(July 17, 2004 -- 11:49 PM EDT // link // print)

This post will take us admittedly deep into the weeds of the Iraq-Niger saga. But if you can handle the detail, let's proceed.

As we've noted several times recently, both the Senate intel committee report and the recent "Butler

Advertisement
Report" in the UK managed to leave out key details that would undermine the storyline they were trying to present. On critical points both have, shall we say, used the truth sparingly.

Here's a brief example.

The Butler Report -- on pages 121-25 -- describes the British intel judgment that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger. The key points in the Butler Report's rendition of events is that the judgment was based on multiple reports and that neither was the sheaf of forged documents that bamboozled the US.

As the Butler Report puts it ...

We have been told that it was not until early 2003 that the British Government became aware that the US (and other states) had received from a journalistic source a number of documents alleged to cover the Iraqi procurement of uranium from Niger. Those documents were passed to the IAEA, which in its update report to the United Nations Security Council in March 2003 determined that the papers were forgeries ... The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

In other words, whatever the deal was with those forgeries, it doesn't affect our judgment because we didn't have the forgeries.

This is what can only be called an artful rendering of the truth.

No, they didn't have the forged documents. But one of their two reports -- indeed, the more important of the two -- was a written summary of the documents provided by Italy -- the same summary the Italians had earlier provided to the Americans, which the CIA used to brief Joe Wilson before they sent him off to Niger. The second report came to them apparently only a week or so before they issued their public document with the claim about Iraq trying to buy uranium in Africa.

This point is pretty widely understood by people following or reporting on this story. But what's interesting to note is the difference between the Butler Report's rendition of events and that of a UK parliamentary committee report produced in September 2003 and chaired by Ann Taylor, an MP who would later serve as a member of the Butler committee.

Here's how the parliamentary committee described the Brits' two sources of evidence on pages 27 and 28 (emphasis added)...

89. The Committee questioned the Chief of the SIS about the reporting behind these statements. We were told that it came from two independent sources, one of which was based on documentary evidence. One had reported in June 2002 and the other in September that the Iraqis had expressed interest in purchasing, as it had done before, uranium from Niger. GCHQ also had some sigint concerning a visit by an Iraqi official to Niger.

90. The SIS’s two sources reported that Iraq had expressed an interest in buying uranium from Niger, but the sources were uncertain whether contracts had been signed or if uranium had actually been shipped to Iraq. In order to protect the intelligence sources and to be factually correct, the phrase “Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was used. At the time of producing the dossier, nothing had challenged the accuracy of the SIS reports.

91. In February 2003 the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) received from a third party (not the UK) documents that the party had acquired in the autumn of 2002 and which purported to be evidence of Iraq’s attempts to obtain uranium from Niger. In March 2003 the IAEA identified some of the documents it had received as forgeries and called into question the authenticity of the others.

92. The third party then released its documents to the SIS. The SIS then contacted its source to check the authenticity of its documentary evidence. The SIS told us that its source was still conducting further investigations into this matter.

93. The SIS stated that the documents did not affect its judgement of its second source and consequently the SIS continues to believe that the Iraqis were attempting to negotiate the purchase of uranium from Niger. We have questioned the SIS about the basis of its judgement and conclude that it is reasonable.

That penultimate sentence is key. By saying the documents didn't affect the judgment on the second source, we can fairly infer that they did affect the judgment of the first -- namely, because the documents (or rather a summary of them) were the first source.

As I say, there's a lot of jargon and bureaucratic gobbledygook here. But the key point is that the authors of the earlier report felt free to be candid about what the Butler Report chose to keep hidden -- namely, that most of the British judgment about 'uranium from Africa' was based on the phony documents the Butler Report claims had nothing to do with their judgment.
-- Josh Marshall

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc..._11.php#003169

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
Josh has been over this:

If you [channeling Ty]bothered to read the entire posting by Djerejian[/channeling Ty], you'll see he goes over these 2004 assertions by Marshall, as well as the Marshall posts Ty alluded to yesterday.

So you don't have to click the link, I'll post the whole thing here for you:

July 17, 2005
Marshall's Not Shooting Straight

Glenn: "When the loudest critics start changing the subject back to their old discredited talking points, well..."

Indeedy. Witness Exhibit A, from TPM:

As Ivo mentioned yesterday evening, whatever the British 'Butler Report' or the Senate (SSCI) report said about the quality of reporting that Iraq had tried to sell uranium Niger, the Iraq Survey Group -- which basically owned Iraq for more than a year -- found that there was no evidence whatsoever that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from anywhere after 1991, let alone from Niger. And for the reasons just stated, the ISG clearly trumps the two earlier reports.

But one might go much further than that. I've discussed over at TPM the various ways that Senate report is intentionally misleading and tendentious. But what of the British Butler Report?

The Butler Report -- in an explicit effort to retrospectively validate the president's '16 words' in the 2003 state of the union -- claimed that the British judgment had not relied on the forged Niger papers. However, there was an earlier British parliamentary inquiry in September 2003 -- before the issue became such a political hot potato. And that report makes clear that most of the British judgment was based on the forged documents. (See a full explanation here).

This is but one example of how the Butler Report and the Senate intel report are political documents. From start to finish.

Josh approvingly links to Ivo Daalder who writes:

In attempting to counter the obvious, Rove's supporters (like the Post editorial page and David Brooks on Lehrer tonite) argue that the reports by Lord Butler and the Senate Intelligence Committee supported earlier intelligence assessments that Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Niger were well founded. But this ignores the definitive judgement on the matter by the Iraqi Survey Group, which concluded as follows last September:
ISG has not found evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991 or renewed indigenous production of such material—activities that we believe would have constituted an Iraqi effort to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.

The fundamental problem facing the administration and its supporters is that on this, as on all other question relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, they were, in the words of David Kay, who initially headed the ISG, "all wrong."

It's one thing to state the obvious, which is that the state of U.S. intelligence regarding Iraq was abysmally wrong on many scores indeed. But Ivo Daalder's post is quite disingenuous, of course. The whole Niger/Africa/uranium hullabaloo had at its very core the hysterical leftist shrieks (Bush lied, People died!) that the '16 Words' of the SOTU were purposeful lies pronounced by POTUS so as to help drag the so gullible, Murdoch-fed ranks of the jingo-fied public into Mesopotamia. So whether the Iraq Survey Group turned up no uranium or such once in Iraq is wholly besides the point vis-a-vis establishing the bona fides of the President's honesty or lack thereof in relation to the contents of the SOTU. It's a total straw man really. But look, we are all capable of Daalder's rather breezy moving of the goal posts to score a partisan point now and again. It happens to the best of us. What really bothers me, however, more than anything Daalder writes, is Josh Marshall's treatment of this matter. He totally impugns the integrity of both the SSCI and the Butler reports ("This is but one example of how the Butler Report and the Senate intel report are political documents. From start to finish.") That's quite a statement, and it well showcases Josh's abject hackery on this issue. No, it's worse. I simply can't avoid the conclusion that Josh Marshall is, very probably, being flat-out dishonest on this issue. He's ignoring so much evidence that disproves his treatment of the matter, and he is too smart to just innocently be 'missing' it, that I must reluctantly conclude he is likely purposefully lying.

First, let us recall that both the Butler Report and the SSCI report were independent, non-partisan investigations (the former led by an independent jurist, the latter a bipartisan effort by the Senate Intelligence Committee). As even that conservative rag (the WaPo!) puts it:

One year after that, reports by two official investigations -- Britain's Butler Commission and the Senate intelligence committee -- demonstrated that Mr. Wilson's portrayal of himself as a whistle-blower was unwarranted. It turned out his report to the CIA had not altered, and may even have strengthened, the agency's conclusion that Iraq had explored uranium purchases from Niger. Moreover, his account had not reached Vice President Cheney or any other senior official. According to the Butler Commission, led by an independent jurist, the assertion about African uranium included in Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech was "well-founded."

So, first off, keep that background in mind when Josh says these are politically biased documents from "start to finish". That arguably the brightest blogger on the left can so easily get away with such comments makes one pause and wonder about the quality of the entire blogosphere, frankly. Again, this was not James Schlesinger investigating Abu Ghraib. You had Jay Rockefeller and all the Democrats on the Senate Intel side. What would have been their motivation to white-wash the record? If anything, guys like Rockefeller were in full-blown gotcha mode trying to establish that Bush had purposefully ignored contrary intelligence and/or lied.

Regardless, Josh has pretty much been forced to piss all over the SSCI and Butler reports because they simply don't support the narrative he peddled assiduously for months last year. The Marshall storyline went that the entire universe of intelligence indicating that Iraq may have been pursuing uranium from Niger/Africa was based on forged documents and so totally compromised. But as I extensively detailed in this blog last year (go here and here) the facts simply didn't (and still don't) support Josh's hyperbolic treatment of the story. Josh then tried to argue that, even if there was alternate intelligence supporting the claim that Iraq tried to get uranium from Africa--evidence that was unrelated to the forgeries--said evidence was still inexorably tainted by linkage to the forgeries (the 'fruit of the poisonous tree' argument). That argument too, proved a red herring. Finally, left with neither the support of the SSCI nor the Butler Report reports, nor the FOPT argument, Josh was forced to resort to a previous British parliamentary report chaired by UK MP Ann Taylor in September 2003. His argument went that this report was drafted before Bush's so infamous SOTU, and so treats the whole Africa and uranium story more head-on and honestly--in other words it's not a political, spin-infused document meant to protect Bush or Blair (recalling that Butler and SSCI were both non-partisan investigations, I need to stress again). Josh writes:

But the key point is that the authors of the earlier report felt free to be candid about what the Butler Report chose to keep hidden -- namely, that most of the British judgment about 'uranium from Africa' was based on the phony documents the Butler Report claims had nothing to do with their judgment.

But even this desperate final argument is simply untrue. As I had written almost a year ago to the day:

For instance, how can Josh say "most of the British judgement about uranium from Africa was based on the phony documents"? Take the September '03 UK Parliamentary Report Marshall is so enthused about. TPM likes it so because it ostensibly makes plainer, as compared to the Butler report, that one of the British intel sources (assorted documentary evidence) was based on the forgeries. But that very same report states unequivocally:
"The SIS stated that the documents did not affect its judgement of its second source and consequently the SIS continues to believe that the Iraqis were attempting to negotiate the purchase of uranium from Niger. We have questioned the SIS about the basis of its judgement and conclude that it is reasonable."

So that's two sources; one ostensibly FOPT tainted and the other not. From this, how does one divine that "most" of the British judgement was based on forgeries? Depends on what the definition of "most" is, I guess.But wait, there's more. Josh neglects to remind us of the Congo finding in the Butler report:

Quoting, at section 499:

"There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached."

Recall, Bush's SOTU referenced Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Africa generally--not just Niger. So that's three separate sources of intel the Brits had regarding Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa. One would appear to be FOPT tainted. Two weren't.

Josh's credibility would be bolstered significantly if he accepted that he never struck gold on this story. He tried, tooth and nail, to score a grand slam. He never did. That's OK, and he may have opportunities in the future on other stories. But in life, when you get something wrong, it's good to admit it, hang up your gloves, and move on to the next thing. Instead, Josh appears to prefer to repeat lies to his overly credulous readers. That's really too bad.

If you recall, Josh kept beating the drum for months that he was cracking this story and that the show would drop. It never really happened.

He has a vested interest in his credibility to make this story.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
If you [channeling Ty]bothered to read the entire posting by Djerejian[/channeling Ty], you'll see he goes over these 2004 assertions by Marshall, as well as the Marshall posts Ty alluded to yesterday.

So you don't have to click the link, I'll post the whole thing here for you:



If you recall, Josh kept beating the drum for months that he was cracking this story and that the show would drop. It never really happened.

He has a vested interest in his credibility to make this story.

So was the W lying when he made his SOTU address, or when he admitted the claims weren't true?

"In his speech, Bush -- citing British intelligence information -- said Iraq was trying to buy uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons, in Africa. The White House concedes that information wasn't true."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...irq.wmdspeech/

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore


He has a vested interest in his credibility to make this story.

That points out the problem with the liberals generally-they have painted themselves into a corner with their empty contrarian divisive rhetoric and now are in the unique position of essentially rooting for America to fail and trying to convince the electorate at large to join this losing effourt.

You are with us or with them, indeed.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
So was the W lying when he made his SOTU address, or when he admitted the claims weren't true?

"In his speech, Bush -- citing British intelligence information -- said Iraq was trying to buy uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons, in Africa. The White House concedes that information wasn't true."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...irq.wmdspeech/

I remain confident that when all the evidence is in and examined that Bush's assertions will be proven true.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
I remain confident that when all the evidence is in and examined that Bush's assertions will be proven true.

Good point.

[sgtclub]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...698308,00.html

• IRAQ is slipping into all-out civil war, a Shia leader declared yesterday, as a devastating onslaught of suicide bombers slaughtered more than 150 people, most of them Shias, around the capital at the weekend

[SlaveNoMore]

I love this guy:

Plame security breach? It just ain't so, Joe

July 17, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Karl Rove? Please. I couldn't care less. This week finds me thousands of miles from the Beltway in what I believe the ABC World News Tonight map designates as the Rest Of The Planet, an obscure beat the media can't seem to spare a correspondent for. But even if I was with the rest of the navel-gazers inside the Beltway I wouldn't be interested in who ''leaked'' the name of CIA employee Valerie Plame to the press. As her weirdly self-obsesssed husband Joseph C. Wilson IV conceded on CNN the other day, she wasn't a ''clandestine officer'' and, indeed, hadn't been one for six years. So one can only ''leak'' her name in the sense that one can ''leak'' the name of the checkout clerk at Home Depot.

Back when Woodrow Wilson was running for president, he had a campaign song called ''Wilson, That's All.'' If only. With Joe Wilson, it's never all. He keeps coming back like a song. But in the real world there's only one scandal in this whole wretched business -- that the CIA, as part of its institutional obstruction of the administration, set up a pathetic ''fact-finding mission'' that would be considered a joke by any serious intelligence agency and compounded it by sending, at the behest of his wife, a shrill politically motivated poseur who, for the sake of 15 minutes' celebrity on the cable gabfest circuit, misled the nation about what he found.

This controversy began, you'll recall, because Wilson objected to a line in the president's State of the Union speech that British intelligence had discovered that Iraq had been trying to acquire ''yellowcake'' -- i.e., weaponized uranium -- from Africa. This assertion made Bush, in Wilson's incisive analysis, a ''liar'' and Cheney a ''lying sonofabitch.''

In fact, the only lying sonafabitch turned out to be Yellowcake Joe. Just about everybody on the face of the earth except Wilson, the White House press corps and the moveon.org crowd accepts that Saddam was indeed trying to acquire uranium from Africa. Don't take my word for it; it's the conclusion of the Senate intelligence report, Lord Butler's report in the United Kingdom, MI6, French intelligence, other European services -- and, come to that, the original CIA report based on Joe Wilson's own briefing to them. Why Yellowcake Joe then wrote an article for the New York Times misrepresenting what he'd been told by senior figures from Major Wanke's regime in Niger is known only to him.

As I wrote in this space a year ago, an ambassador, in Sir Henry Wootton's famous dictum, is a good man sent abroad to lie for his country; this ambassador came home to lie to his. What we have here is, in effect, the old standby plot of lame Hollywood conspiracy thrillers: rogue elements within the CIA attempting to destabilize the elected government. If the left's view of the world is now so insanely upside-down that that's the side they want to be on, good for them. But ''leaking'' the name of Wilson's wife and promoter within the CIA didn't ''endanger her life'' or ''compromise her mission.'' Au contraire, exposing the nature of this fraudulent, compromised mission might conceivably prevent the American people having their lives endangered.

Here's the thing: They're still pulling body parts from London's Tube tunnels. Too far away for you? No local angle? OK, how about this? Magdy el-Nashar. He's a 33-year old Egyptian arrested Friday morning in Cairo, and thought to be what they call a ''little emir'' -- i.e., the head honcho in the local terrorist cell, the one who fires up the suicide bombers. Until his timely disappearance, he was a biochemist studying at Leeds University and it's in his apartment the London bombs were made. Previously he was at North Carolina State University.

So this time round he blew up London rather than Washington. Next time, who knows? Who cares? Here's another fellow you don't read much about in America: Kamel Bourgass. He had a plan to unleash ricin in London. Fortunately, the cops got wind of that one and three months ago he was convicted and jailed. Just suppose, instead of the British police raiding Bourgass' apartment but missing el-Nashar's, it had been the other way around, and ricin had been released in aerosol form on the Tube.

Kamel Bourgass and Magdy el-Nashar are real people, not phantoms conjured by those lyin' sonsofbitches Bush and Cheney. And to those who say, "but that's why Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror," sorry, it doesn't work like that. It's not either/or; it's a string of connections: unlimited Saudi money, Westernized Islamist fanatics, supportive terrorist states, proliferating nuclear technology. One day it all comes together and there goes the neighborhood. Here's another story you may have missed this week:

''Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Tuesday.''

Got that? If you don't let us go nuclear, we'll go nuclear. Negotiate that, John Kerry. As with Bourgass and el-Nashar, Hossein Moussavian and Cyrus Nasseri are real Iranian negotiators, not merely the deranged war fantasies of Bush and Cheney.

The British suicide bombers and the Iranian nuke demands are genuine crises. The Valerie Plame game is a pseudo-crisis. If you want to talk about Niger or CIA reform, fine. But if you seriously think the only important aspect of a politically motivated narcissist kook's drive-thru intelligence mission to a critical part of the world is the precise sequence of events by which some White House guy came to mention the kook's wife to some reporter, then you've departed the real world and you're frolicking on the wilder shores of Planet Zongo.

What's this really about? It's not difficult. A big chunk of the American elites have decided there is no war; it's all a racket got up by Bush and Cheney. And, even if there is a war somewhere or other, wherever it is, it's not where Bush says it is. Iraq is a ''distraction'' from Afghanistan -- and, if there were no Iraq, Afghanistan would be a distraction from Niger, and Niger's a distraction from Valerie Plame's next photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

The police have found the suicide bomber's head in the rubble of the London bus, and Iran is enriching uranium. The only distraction here is the pitiful parochialism of our political culture.

link

[SlaveNoMore]

sgtclub
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...698308,00.html

• IRAQ is slipping into all-out civil war, a Shia leader declared yesterday, as a devastating onslaught of suicide bombers slaughtered more than 150 people, most of them Shias, around the capital at the weekend

The bombers deliberately went after a group of children last week, too. Just children.

Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised the Shias have yet to mount a massive response against the Sunnis and/or the foreign insurgents. You would think it would be a natural reaction.