Ex-CIA Dir, George Tenet: Bush Admin Liars

[Nickdfresh]

Tenet: "Slam Dunk" Comment Misused
Ex-CIA Director Explains Phrase He Says Bush Administration Has Dishonorably Clung To


April 26, 2007
Former CIA Director George Tenet, left, speaks to correspondent Scott Pelley. (CBS) (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/25/60minutes/main2728375_page2.shtml)

Quote:

"I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."
Ex-CIA head George Tenet

(CBS) Ex-CIA Director George Tenet says the way the Bush administration has used his now famous "slam dunk" comment — which he admits saying in reference to making the public case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — is both disingenuous and dishonorable.

It also ruined his reputation and his career, he tells 60 Minutes Scott Pelley in his first network television interview. Pelley's report will be broadcast Sunday, April 29, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

The phrase "slam dunk" didn't refer to whether Saddam Hussein actually had WMDs, says Tenet; the CIA thought he did. He says he was talking about what information could be used to make that case when he uttered those words. "We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant," explains Tenet.

Months later, when no WMDs were found in Iraq, someone leaked the story to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, who then wrote about a Dec. 21, 2002, White House meeting in which the CIA director reportedly "rose up, threw his arms in the air [and said,] 'It's a slam dunk case.' " Tenet says it was a passing comment, made well after major decisions had already been made to mobilize the nation for war.

The leak effectively made him a scapegoat for the invasion and ended his career.

"At the end of the day, the only thing you have … is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor and when you don't have that anymore, well, there you go," Tenet tells Pelley.

He says he doesn't know who leaked it but says there were only a handful of people in the room.

"It's the most despicable thing that ever happened to me," Tenet says. "You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me."

Tenet says to have the president base his entire decision to go to war on such a remark is unbelievable.

"So a whole decision to go to war, when all of these other things have happened in the run-up to war? You make mobilization decisions, you've looked at war plans," says Tenet. "I'll never believe that what happened that day informed the president's view or belief of the legitimacy or the timing of this war. Never!"

Tenet says what bothers him most is that senior administration officials like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continue using "slam dunk" as a talking point.

"And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on 'Meet the Press' on the fifth year [anniversary] of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk' as if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq," he tells Pelley. "And you listen to that and they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot [who] told us and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous … Let's everybody just get up and tell the truth. Tell the American people what really happened."

In the broadcast, Tenet says the intelligence extracted from terror suspects in the agency's "High Value Detainee" program, which includes so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," was more valuable than all the other terror intelligence gathered by the FBI, the National Security Agency and the CIA.

The nation's former top spy denies that any torture took place, but tells Pelley that the program saved lives and allowed the government to foil terror plots.

The High Value Detainee program uses "enhanced" techniques said to include sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, and water boarding, in which suspects reportedly are restrained as a steady stream of water is poured over their faces, causing a severe gag reflex and a terrifying fear of drowning.

In Sunday's interview, Pelley challenges Tenet on the "enhanced interrogations," a topic that gets little play in his much-anticipated book, "At the Center of the Storm."

"Here's what I would say to you, to the Congress, to the American people, to the president of the United States: I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots," he tells Pelley. "I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together, have been able to tell us."

The new program for interrogation came after the 9/11 attacks. When pressed by Pelley about whether interrogations included water boarding, Tenet insists he does not talk about techniques, and that what he means by "enhanced interrogation" is not torture. Whatever it is, it's justified in his mind.

"We don't torture people," he says. "I want you to listen to me. The context is it's post-9/11. I've got reports of nuclear weapons in New York City, apartment buildings that are gonna be blown up, planes that are gonna fly into airports all over again, plot lines that I don't know. I don't know what's going on inside the United States, and I'm struggling to find out where the next disaster is going to occur. Everybody forgets one central context of what we lived through: the palpable fear that we felt on the basis of the fact that there was so much we did not know."

When 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in a raid in Pakistan, the "enhanced interrogations" apparently were a surprise to him. According to Tenet, the captured terrorist told CIA interrogators, "I'll talk to you guys when you take me to New York and I can see my lawyer." Instead, he reportedly was flown around the world, kept in secret prisons and water-boarded. Tenet repeated his denial again and again: "Let me say that again to you. We don't torture people. OK?"

But when asked by Pelley why the "enhanced interrogation" techniques were necessary, Tenet says, "Because these are people who will never, ever, ever tell you a thing. These are people who know who's responsible for the next terrorist attack … [who] wouldn't blink an eyelash about killing you, your family, me and my family and everybody in this town."

When Pelley presses, asking whether he lost sleep over the interrogations, Tenet says, "Of course you lose sleep over it. You're on new territory."

Produced by Graham Messick and Michael Radutzky
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[blueturk]

So is he giving back his ridiculously awarded Medal Of Freedom?

[DEMON CUNT]

Yet another person walks away from that administraion with plenty of shit to talk.

[Nickdfresh]

Here's some more...

Tenet Says CIA Warned White House 7 Months Before Iraq Invasion That 'Anarchy' Could Ensue

04-27-2007 7:37 PM
By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (Associated Press) -- The CIA warned the Bush White House seven months before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the U.S. could face a thicket of bad consequences, starting with "anarchy and the territorial breakup" of the country, former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book.

CIA analysts wrote the warning at the start of August 2002 and inserted it into a briefing book distributed at an early September meeting of President Bush's national security team at Camp David, he writes.

The agency analysis painted what Tenet calls additional "worst-case" scenarios: "a surge of global terrorism against U.S. interests fueled by deepening Islamic antipathy toward the United States"; "regime-threatening instability in key Arab states"; and "major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic alliance."

While the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have been widely criticized for being wrong about much of the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, the analysis Tenet describes concerning postwar scenarios seems prescient. Iraq is buffeted by brutal sectarian violence and there are suggestions that the country be partitioned into ethnic zones.

However, Tenet cautions against concluding that the CIA predicted many of the difficulties that followed. "Doing so would be disingenuous," because the agency saw them as possible scenarios, not certainties, he writes. "The truth is often more complex than convenient."

The analysis also presaged an intelligence community conclusion last year that the Iraq war was fueling Islamic resentment toward the United States and giving rise to a new generation of terror operatives.

Tenet's recollection of the memo also comes at a time when Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress are locked in a high-stakes dispute over war funding and whether to set hard timetables for ending the war.

A copy of the book, "At the Center of the Storm," was purchased by an Associated Press reporter Friday at a retail outlet, ahead of its scheduled Monday release. Tenet served as CIA chief from 1997 to 2004.

The book is highly critical of Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials, who Tenet argues rushed the United States into war in Iraq without serious debate _ a charge the White House rejected on Friday. Beyond that, he contends, the administration failed to adequately consider what would come in the war's aftermath.

"There was precious little consideration, that I'm aware of, about the big picture of what would come next," Tenet writes. "While some policy makers were eager to say that we would be greeted as liberators, what they failed to mention is that the intelligence community told them that such a greeting would last only for a limited period."

The former CIA director offers a litany of questions that went unasked:

_"What impact would a large American occupying force have in an Arab country in the heart of the Middle East?"

_"What kind of political strategy would be necessary to cause the Iraqi society to coalesce in a post-Saddam world and maximize the chances for our success?"

_"How would the presence of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, and the possibility of a pro-West Iraqi government, be viewed in Iran? And what might Iran do in reaction?"

Tenet laments that "there seemed to be a lack of curiosity in asking these kinds of questions, and the lack of a disciplined process to get the answers before committing the country to war."

Tenet assigns his own agency part of the blame, saying the intelligence community should have strived to answer the questions not asked by the administration.

The memoir paints a portrait of constant tension between the CIA and the office of Cheney, who Tenet says stretched the intelligence to serve his own belief that war was the right course.

It alarmed Tenet and surprised even Bush, the author says, when Cheney issued his now-famous declaration that, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

Chastising Cheney nearly five years later, Tenet writes: "Policy makers have a right to their own opinions, but not their own set of facts." Here again, Tenet blames himself for not pulling Cheney aside and telling him the WMD assertion was "well beyond what our analysis could support."

For the first time, Tenet offers an account of his own view of a historic moment in the run-up to war: Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 speech before the United Nations, with Tenet sitting just behind him.

"That was about the last place I wanted to be," Tenet recalls. "It was a great presentation, but unfortunately the substance didn't hold up," he says of the performance, in which Powell charged Iraq had WMD stockpiles.

"One by one, the various pillars of the speech, particularly on Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs, began to buckle," he writes. "The secretary of state was subsequently hung out to dry in front of the world, and our nation's credibility plummeted."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/27/ap3664222.html)

[Nickdfresh]

Thanks George, but why not a little more vocal at the time?

[DrMaddVibe]

Well, if you had been the architect of the Worldwide Attack Matrix you would've shut your fucking mouth too.

[Nickdfresh]

Worldwide attack matrix? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64802-2002Jan30?language=printer) What does this have to do with Iraq?

In fact, Tenet saw the CIA's power wane because he wasn't quite incompetent enough (though he did get the afore mentioned "Medal of Freedom.") Rumsfeld and his band of Pentagon Ne0 COns began to assume many of the roles of the CIA, including their paramilitary and even basic HUMINT activities, this despite the CIA track record of relative success in Afghanistan in 2001-2002...

[Nickdfresh]

He's on 60 Minutes now...

[Big Train]

That's such bullshit. People in those positions that high up do not make it a habit of not being extremely clear, especially on that scale.

He fucked up and can't admit he did. Robert McNamara Pt. II..

[Nickdfresh]

He was used as a scapegoat for all that went wrong in the aftermath of "Mission Accomplished" as well...


Like Cheney saying, "oh, but he told us they had WMDs, it's all his fault!" when this is not the truth. IF you watch his interview, Tenet freely admits that the CIA thought Saddam had weapons, his criticism has more to do with the complete lack of debate, and the use of 9/11 to justify and attack on a country that plainly had nothing to do with it...

When do people demand that Cheney and Bush admit they fucked up?

[Nickdfresh]

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[DrMaddVibe]

What a liar.

"I was taken out of context"

Men of honor don't exaggerate facts to keep their job. Men of honor, wtf would THAT guy know about honor? He couldn't even get a security clearance!

[Nickdfresh]

Oh, he couldn't?

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
What a liar.

"I was taken out of context"

Men of honor don't exaggerate facts to keep their job. Men of honor, wtf would THAT guy know about honor? He couldn't even get a security clearance!

Seems to me that the Director of the CIA would have security clearance. Correct?

Or is your post just a plethora of dishonest talking points that you learn't from the TV?

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4776/hannityom1.jpg

[DrMaddVibe]

So, let's see if I have this right...

The director of the CIA has information that is incorrect and passes it on to the Secretary of State. He goes in front of the UN and basically puts his military credibility on the line. He's proven to be wrong and you STILL think Tenet is a victim?

[Ellyllions]

Well, that's the way our society works isn't it?

Criminals are actually victims?....Willful wrong doing is the result of some neglected need by someone else's misgivings, right?

Defense attorney's are in business to point this out. Time for Tenet to lawyer up and do something about it. Let's see....

-Defamation of character?
-Slander and liable?
-Discrimination?

$100 Million should prove that he was used, dontcha think?

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by DrSaddBawls (R- Head in ass.)
He's proven to be wrong and you STILL think Tenet is a victim?

Only a victim of your incredibly idiotic comments such as:


Originally posted by DrSaddBawls (R- Retarded)
He couldn't even get a security clearance!

It's funny to see you sycophantic right wing sharks feed on those that you once supported.

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Clay-Aiken-Photograph-C11795532.jpeg
DrSaddBawls is my biggest fan! Too bad he's so stupid.

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
Well, that's the way our society works isn't it?



Sure, now that he's out of the administration that you so fondly voted for twice, he's fair game.

[Ellyllions]

Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
Sure, now that he's out of the administration that you so fondly voted for twice, he's fair game.

..yaWn...and you talk about me going around in circles...

If I give you the standard answers, will you get some new material to try to nail me with?

Here ya go...

Unapologetic
a) Yes I voted for George Bush. But only because there wasn't any other good alternative.

b) Yes I voted for George Bush. I wanted someone strong and assertive in the driver's seat.

Repentant
c) Yes I voted for George Bush. I bludgeon myself every day in pennance.

d) Yes I voted for George Bush. I'll never do it again, I promise.

I think that covers every trap you've been trying to set for me. Now, hit on those...get it out of your system and then we'll talk politics.

Ya'll give DC some room to purge.

[FORD]

It's time to reclaim the words SLAM DUNK.........

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[FORD]

Originally posted by Ellyllions

a) Yes I voted for George Bush. But only because there wasn't any other good alternative.

b) Yes I voted for George Bush. I wanted someone strong and assertive in the driver's seat.



Strong and assertive?? You gotta be joking.

Arrogant and clueless does not equal strong and assertive.

And even Ralph Fucking Nader would have been a better alternative than the destruction this country has suffered under the BCE this decade.

[Ellyllions]

That's it Ford, you get it all out of your system too so we can move on.

Even feel free to add anything that I might not have thought of as reasons....go ahead, I'm sure you'd be right.

[FORD]

There simply is NO justifications for voting for Chimp.

It's not even about Gore being 300 times better, or McCain being more qualified.

It's the fact that Chimpy's campaign was built on 100% LIES, just like his war was.

Chimpy said he would be a "compassionate conservative", have a "humble foreign policy", and that he did not believe in "nation building".

But he's slaughtered over 650,000 Iraqi civilians while needlessly occupying a formerly sovereign nation which never was a threat to the United States, and continues to do so, even when those in his own party are telling him to end this madness.

No compassion. No humility. Failed "nation building" (and shitty empire building)

The man (or monkey) has done far more damage to THIS country than Osama Bin Laden could have imagined in his wettest camel-filled dreams.

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
..yaWn...and you talk about me going around in circles...

If I give you the standard answers, will you get some new material to try to nail me with?

Here ya go...

Unapologetic
a) Yes I voted for George Bush. But only because there wasn't any other good alternative.

b) Yes I voted for George Bush. I wanted someone strong and assertive in the driver's seat.

Repentant
c) Yes I voted for George Bush. I bludgeon myself every day in pennance.

d) Yes I voted for George Bush. I'll never do it again, I promise.

I think that covers every trap you've been trying to set for me. Now, hit on those...get it out of your system and then we'll talk politics.

Ya'll give DC some room to purge.

Ahhh, look at you tyring so hard to justify your lousy decisions with lousy excuses! Funny how the reasoning you offer parallels the rhetoric that was spoon fed to you by the media.

If only intelligence was part of your criteria!

Unapologetic & repentant at the same time! Har har! Imagine how you would feel if terrorism or the invasion actually affected you!

Maybe if those 3500 dead American bodies were piled in your back yard...

I hate it when conservatives are on antidepressants; it only amplifies their already sociopathic tendencies.

[DrMaddVibe]

fighting words
A Loser's History
George Tenet's sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, April 30, 2007, at 11:37 AM ET

It's difficult to see why George Tenet would be so incautious as to write his own self-justifying apologia, let alone give it the portentous title At the Center of the Storm. There is already a perfectly good pro-Tenet book written by a man who knows how to employ the overworked term storm. Bob Woodward's 2002 effort, Bush at War, was, in many of its aspects, almost dictated by George Tenet. How do we know this? Well, Tenet is described on the opening page as "a hefty, outgoing son of Greek immigrants," which means that he talked to Woodward on background. Further compliments are showered upon him. We discover that his main protector on Capitol Hill, Sen. David Boren, who represented Oklahoma until 1994, had implored President-elect Bush to retain this Clinton-era head of the CIA and if he had any doubts, to "ask your father":
When the younger Bush did, the former President George H.W. Bush said: "From what I hear, he's a good fellow," one of the highest accolades in the Bush family lexicon. Tenet É later led the effort to rename CIA headquarters for Bush, himself a former DCI.

No need to draw a very complex picture here: Tenet knows how the kiss-up and kiss-down game is played. And, for a rather mediocre man, he did well enough out of the arrangement while it lasted. Woodward was even willing to describe him as one who "had developed an understanding of the importance of human intelligence, HUMINT in spycraft." But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I only mean to say that it was a very favorably disposed chronicler who wrote this, in describing Tenet's reaction on the terrible morning of Sept. 11, 2001:

"This has bin Laden all over it," Tenet told Boren. "I've got to go." He also had another reaction, one that raised the real possibility that the CIA and the FBI had not done all that could have been done to prevent the terrorist attack. "I wonder," Tenet said, "if it has anything to do with this guy taking pilot training."

Notice the direct quotes that make it clear who is the author of this brilliant insight. And then pause for a second. The author is almost the only man who could have known of Zacarias Moussaoui and his co-conspiratorsÑthe very man who positively knew they were among us, in flight schools, and then decided to leave them alone. In his latest effusion, he writes: "I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting." Well, we all know that much by now. But Tenet is one of the few who knew it then, and not just in his "gut" but in his small brain, and who left us all under open skies. His ridiculous agency, supposedly committed to "HUMINT" under his leadership, could not even do what John Walker Lindh had doneÑnamely, infiltrate the Taliban and the Bin Laden circle. It's for this reason that the CIA now has to rely on torturing the few suspects it can catch, a policy, incidentally, that Tenet's book warmly defends.

So, the only really interesting question is why the president did not fire this vain and useless person on the very first day of the war. Instead, he awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom! Tenet is now so self-pitying that he expects us to believe that he was "not at all sure that [he] really wanted to accept" this honor. But it seems that he allowed or persuaded himself to do so, given that the citation didn't mention Iraq. You could imagine that Tenet had never sat directly behind Colin Powell at the United Nations, beaming like an overfed cat, as the secretary of state went through his rather ill-starred presentation. And who cares whether his "slam dunk" vulgarity was misquoted or not? We have better evidence than that. Here is what Tenet told the relevant Senate committee in February 2002:

Iraq É has also had contacts with al-Qaida. Their ties may be limited by divergent ideologies, but the two sides' mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggests that tactical cooperation between them is possible, even though Saddam is well aware that such activity would carry serious consequences.

As even the notion of it certainly should have done. At around the same time, on another nontrivial matter, Tenet informed the Senate armed services committee that: "We believe that Saddam never abandoned his nuclear weapons program." It is a little bit late for him to pose as if Iraq was a threat concocted in some crepuscular corner of the vice president's office. And it's pathetic for him to say, even in the feeble way that he chooses to phrase it, that "there was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat." (Emphasis added.) There had been a very serious debate over the course of at least three preceding administrations, whether Tenet "knew" of it or not. (He was only an intelligence specialist, after all.) As for his bawling and sobbing claim that faced with crisis in Iraq, "the administration's message was: Don't blame us. George Tenet and the CIA got us into this mess," I can say, as one who has attended about a thousand postmortems on Iraq in Washington, that I have never, ever, not once heard a single partisan of the administration say anything of the kind. The White House may have thought that it could count on the CIA to present some sort of solidity in a crisis but, as Sept. 11 had already proved, more fool the White House.

In the post-Kuwait-war period, there was little political risk in doing what Tenet had always done and making the worst assumption about anything that Saddam Hussein might even be thinking about. (Who but an abject idiot would ever make a different assumption or grant the Baathists the smallest benefit of the least doubt?) But we forget so soon and so easily. The problem used to be the diametrically opposite one. The whole of our vaunted "intelligence" system completely refused to believe any of the warnings that Saddam Hussein was about to invade and occupy Kuwait in 1990. By the time the menace was taken seriously, the invasion itself was under way. This is why the work of Kenneth Pollack (this time titled The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq) was received with such gravity when it was published in 2002. Pollack had interpreted the signals correctly in 1990Ñand been ignoredÑand was arguing that another final round with Saddam was inevitable. His book did more to persuade policy-makers in Washington than anything ever said by Ahmad Chalabi. To revisit these arguments is to be reminded that no thinking person ever felt that the danger posed by a totalitarian and aggressive Iraq was a negligible one. And now comes Tenet, the man who got everything wrong and who ran the agency that couldn't think straight, to ask us to sympathize with his moanings about "IraqÑwho, me?"

A highly irritating expression in Washington has it that "hindsight is always 20-20." Would that it were so. History is not a matter of hindsight and is not, in fact, always written by the victors. In this case, a bogus history is being offered by a real loser whose hindsight is cockeyed and who had no foresight at all.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Article URL: /id/2165269/
Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC


http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2165269/nav/tap1/

[FORD]

I see Hitchens is back on the bottle.... :bottle:

[Ellyllions]

Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
Ahhh, look at you tyring so hard to justify your lousy decisions with lousy excuses! Funny how the reasoning you offer parallels the rhetoric that was spoon fed to you by the media.

If only intelligence was part of your criteria!

Unapologetic & repentant at the same time! Har har! Imagine how you would feel if terrorism or the invasion actually affected you!

Maybe if those 3500 dead American bodies were piled in your back yard...

I hate it when conservatives are on antidepressants; it only amplifies their already sociopathic tendencies.

Feel better?

[DrMaddVibe]

Originally posted by FORD
I see Hitchens is back on the bottle.... :bottle:

Sounds like he needs more then. He explained what I stated before when I said you guys were giving Tenet a free pass.

Tenet got caught lying.

The previous administrations weren't going to do anything with whatever he said, 9-11 forced Bush to look at every angle of terrorism. The broken UN resolutions were justification to tear Saddam a new ass but when you couple that with your CIA director screaming "Slam Dunk" and "WMD", please don't tell me you'd sit on your ass and do nothing.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
Yes I voted for George Bush. I bludgeon myself every day in pennance.

Honestly, you and everyone else should be ashamed of yourselves.

All gw voters should be doing everything they can to rectify this situation.

[DrMaddVibe]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Honestly, you and everyone else should be ashamed of yourselves.

All gw voters should be doing everything they can to rectify this situation.

We did!

Algore and JOhnKErry didn't get the job!

[Ellyllions]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Honestly, you and everyone else should be ashamed of yourselves.

All gw voters should be doing everything they can to rectify this situation.

Well, some of us are trying to rectify the situation at hand.
We're trying to move on and figure a way to get our newly elected Congress to stop looking in the mirror long enough to get something done.

But everytime we talk about that, we get the "you voted for Bush" redundancy that brings us all back to square 1.

And I'm really puzzled as to why "anti-depressants" keep coming into it.... I don't know what that fascination is to do with because it's not really a well thought out snark. It's kinda stupid actually....unless of course it's a sexist dig...

[knuckleboner]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Honestly, you and everyone else should be ashamed of yourselves.

All gw voters should be doing everything they can to rectify this situation.

i don't agree with that.

many people made the decision they felt was best at the time.


personally, i thought bush was a poor candidate in 2000 and had not done a credible enough job in 2004 to earn my vote.

so i voted for gore and kerry. but was i excited about either candidate? no, actually.



if we're in a bad spot now, it should be the job of everyone to rectify it, bush supporters and opponents. but when we intensify the divide: "YOU voted for bush. it's YOUR fault we're in this mess, YOU need to fix it..." then we risk damaging a concensus on actually moving forward to improve things.

the swing voters are the ones that drive elections. they're not necessarily wedded to who they voted for, so i'm not sure it helps to demonize them making what, at the time, they felt was the best (or oftentimes the least worst) decision.

it's the difference between criticizing the vote and criticizing the voter.

[Lqskdiver]

That's just it, knucks!

No one on the LEFT wants to FIX this mess. They just want out! As if that is the solution to the problem.

We made this mess, no doubt it and we are in the process of making progress. We have been given a timetable to report on the status of the surge...late september/october. I say we give the troops the time they need.

In the meantime, stop calling for troop pullout and give them the support they need. Like the fucking funding they need to complete the job till then without the added pork and time withdrawal.

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by Lqskdiver
We made this mess, no doubt it and we are in the process of making progress.

What progress are we making Lq?

Nice choice of words there, btw... "process of making progress".. lmao ;)

[Lqskdiver]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
What progress are we making Lq?

Nice choice of words there, btw... "process of making progress".. lmao ;)

Believe it or not, that was intentional. ;)

No, really, April was recently reported by the Iraqi ministry as a decrease in violence over the past several months....the strive to progress continues. Now, the report of internal strife has the head Al Queda in Iraq being killed by his own...still unconfirmed.

Now, chalk it up the initial stage of the surge or they're lying their collective asses off.....WE REPORT, YOU DECIDE.

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Lqskdiver


...In the meantime, stop calling for troop pullout and give them the support they need. Like the fucking funding they need to complete the job till then without the added pork and time withdrawal.

And what IS the fucking job???

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --George W. Bush, interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006

[Lqskdiver]

The fucking "JOB" is that we get every camel jockey muslim an internet connection so they can surf the net for porn, thereby betraying their beliefs!!

Ya fucking infidel!!

[blueturk]

I knew you didn't have have an answer.....:rolleyes:

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Lqskdiver
Believe it or not, that was intentional. ;)

No, really, April was recently reported by the Iraqi ministry as a decrease in violence over the past several months....the strive to progress continues. Now, the report of internal strife has the head Al Queda in Iraq being killed by his own...still unconfirmed.

Now, chalk it up the initial stage of the surge or they're lying their collective asses off.....WE REPORT, YOU DECIDE.

Yeah, because who could argue with the "credability" of the Iraqi "ministry" (controlled by pro-Iranian militias...)

Yeah, let's continue to allow Americans to die as Iraq Shiites basically piss on the Sunnis --and hide behind us as they murder people with their death squads.

Is that the fucking plan?!

Maliki's cronies (the Iraqi President for you Republicans outhere) is thwarting our "surge" by firing Iraqi Army and police officers too aggressive in cracking down on his militia puppeteers...

[blueturk]

I'll help Lsqwdiver out. Dubya says that "...success is a level of violence where the people (in Iraq) feel comfortable about living their daily lives.'" That's the "job", I guess. Reassuring, isn't it? What a fucking moron.


Middle East News
Iraq "success" possible without end to violence, Bush says

May 2, 2007, 18:59 GMT


Washington - Pressed by Congress to bring troops home from Iraq, US President George W Bush on Wednesday defined success as reducing - not stopping - the country's deadly sectarian violence.

'There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it,' he told a Washington audience. 'But success is a level of violence where the people (in Iraq) feel comfortable about living their daily lives.'

A day after vetoing legislation that would have started a US troop pullout, Bush suggested he would be satisfied if warfare in Iraq waned to the level of US inner-city crime.

'Washington for many years was the murder capital of the United States of America. I believe we were still able to do our jobs,' White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

He rejected speculation by reporters that Bush was lowering the bar for US goals in Iraq from lofty aims like spreading democracy in the Middle East.

Bush has recently claimed that US and Iraqi forces have made progress in curbing sectarian violence and has sought to shift the focus to fighting al-Qaeda elements in Iraq.

In a series of speeches, he has renewed efforts to rally the US public behind the unpopular war, though he said Wednesday that 'casualties are likely to stay high' in Iraq.

'What the president is trying to do is to be realistic,' Snow said.

Bush on Wednesday vetoed a war spending plan passed by the Democratic-led Congress that would have forced him to begin pulling US troops out of Iraq by October 1.

The impasse has held up some 100 billion dollars for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

Shortly before meeting congressional leaders for talks on ending the deadlock, the White House released a message from Bush to Congress in which he argued that the legislation was unconstitutional because it infringed on his presidential powers.


http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1299395.php/Iraq_&quotsuccess"_possible_without_end_to_violence_Bush_says

[Nickdfresh]

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Before casting the second veto of his pres idency Tuesday, President Bush said the Democrats' Iraq spending bill would have created a "cauldron of chaos" in Iraq.

Yet it is not that deeply flawed legislation that threatened chaos.

No Iraq-related mistakes have been more damaging to U.S. security nor more responsible for destabilizing Iraq than the Bush administration's own errors of judgment, planning and execution. No wonder the U.S. public is losing its appetite for further pointless casualties and is eager to back hasty withdrawal schemes.

But instead of leveling with the American people, the White House circles the wagons.

The saddest part of the whole end game in Iraq may be that no matter how bravely and selflessly U.S. and coalition troops execute the plan for a "surge," the bad news keeps overwhelming the good. The surge won't be in full swing until June, and already Iraq's first fully elected government is self-destructing.

Shiite right-wingers who would rather execute innocent Sunnis than cooperate with fellow Shiites have abandoned the government. Sunni centrists are threatening a similar exit, outraged by blatant government connivance in attacks on Sunnis and with key compromises stalled on sharing oil revenue and power.

The surge plan never made a lot of sense. It's not clear what happens next, even if some semblance of security is restored in Baghdad. The plan gambled - and lost - that U.S. and Iraqi troops could bottle up Shiite militias backed by Iran and abetted by organized-crime gangs. Of the more than 100 U.S. soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq last month, more than half gave their lives in and around Baghdad, the focus of the "surge."

The critical truth about Iraq that few Americans ever hear is how long U.S. efforts would have to extend - over many years - or how much more it would cost. Staying in Iraq would entail infinitely more U.S. treasure and political and diplomatic resources.

There's still time to try diplomacy that reaches out to all of Iraq's neighbors, as outlined by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

U.S. troops are registering important successes, too. In perpetually troubled Anbar province, hundreds of Sunni sheiks helped U.S. forces drive non-Iraqi militants to find a new base of operations - and possibly a new chief, if rumors circulating Tuesday of the death of al-Qaida-in-Iraq's Egyptian-born leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, prove true.

Yet ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence have become so engrained that small successes aren't registering in the larger picture. Civil war already is a reality to Iraq's minority Sunnis. The threatened mass defection of Sunnis from the Iraqi government could be the final descebt into the abyss of Iraqi collapse and regional conflict.

The Plain Dealer (http://www.cleveland.com/politics/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1178095476130450.xml&coll=2)

[Lqskdiver]

What level of violence are you comfortable with?

- neighbor giving you shit about not returning his hoe (garden tool for you)

- barroom brawl over who's best NBA team in the league.

- drive by shooting by a rival gang.

- massive riot over illegal aliens (http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5264762) status in your country

- lone gunmen entering your school and killing 33 people in a random shooting spree


Seems we've adjusted to a "comfortable" level of violence over here.

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Lqskdiver
What level of violence are you comfortable with?

- neighbor giving you shit about not returning his hoe (garden tool for you)

- barroom brawl over who's best NBA team in the league.

- drive by shooting by a rival gang.

- massive riot over illegal aliens (http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5264762) status in your country

- lone gunmen entering your school and killing 33 people in a random shooting spree


Seems we've adjusted to a "comfortable" level of violence over here.

I knew this bullshit was coming. You are one of the last of The Sheep. Your blind devotion to your party overrides all common sense. All you can do is echo the words of your leader in a futile attempt to defend your own stupidity in supporting the worst president in recent history. No matter how badly Bush fucks up, you will continue to support him. For you are one of the last of The Sheep, and you don't know any other way.

"We're never been stay the course, George." --George W. Bush, attempting to distance himself from what has been his core strategy in Iraq for the last three years, interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Oct. 22, 2006

[Lqskdiver]

Originally posted by blueturk
For you are one of the last of The Sheep, and you don't know any other way.



IN THE END THEIR CAN BE ONLY ONE.

http://www.filmposters.it/imgposter/grandi/highlander.jpg

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Lqskdiver
What level of violence are you comfortable with?

- neighbor giving you shit about not returning his hoe (garden tool for you)

- barroom brawl over who's best NBA team in the league.

- drive by shooting by a rival gang.

- massive riot over illegal aliens (http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5264762) status in your country

- lone gunmen entering your school and killing 33 people in a random shooting spree


Seems we've adjusted to a "comfortable" level of violence over here.

Except when terrorists get a lucky strike and kill 3000 Americans...

Then we go to pieces and lose it...

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
Feel better?

Fuck no! I will not feel better until the illegal invasion that you celebrated and voted for stops killing our soldiers. You proudly purchased the snake oil from the snake oil salesman.

Of course you are anxious to move on. Yet you continue to preach the same cliched politic naive that brought you to vote for the Decider twice because you wanted the Decider "in the drivers seat."

What are you doing to "rectify the situation at hand"?

What anti-depressants are you on? Men and women, hell even pets take anti-depressants. Alas the misogyny you seek is nowhere to be found. I ask this because you (and other former right wing warmongers) have changed your mind due to social pressure or embarrassment rather than a sense of right and wrong or morality. Just curious if it's the drugs of just the way right wing types typically conduct themselves.

It's funny to see you mention "not really a well thought out snark" since this is the very method that you use to make your voting decisions.

[Ellyllions]

Holy cow!
Maybe it's you who should seek out some anti-depressants.

...btw, I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that you're female...

For the rest of it, I'm not even going to bother responding. I've been in this forum for a while now and I've made my own choices known. The fact that there are some who cannot/refuse to live with those of us who voted for Bush, just shows the true nature of the beast. You're ok living with people as long as it's not "us" people.

Guess we'll move on but folk like you won't. Guess our minds can be changed but yours can't. Interesting, eh?

Hey, whatever it takes though....

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
Holy cow!
Maybe it's you who should seek out some anti-depressants.

...btw, I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that you're female...

For the rest of it, I'm not even going to bother responding. I've been in this forum for a while now and I've made my own choices known. The fact that there are some who cannot/refuse to live with those of us who voted for Bush, just shows the true nature of the beast. You're ok living with people as long as it's not "us" people.

Guess we'll move on but folk like you won't. Guess our minds can be changed but yours can't. Interesting, eh?

Hey, whatever it takes though....

What are you doing to "rectify the situation at hand"?

I am a dude.

You may wish to casually forget about your role in the deaths of 3500 Americans & countless Iraqis. But those of us who care about human life and knew that the invasion was based on bullshit before it started will not let you get away with it.

I am gonna guess that you are on a combination of antidepressant medications. Correct?

[Ellyllions]

You're getting nowhere...

[Guitar Shark]

I've never understood why a dude would choose "DEMON CUNT" as his username... :D

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
... The fact that there are some who cannot/refuse to live with those of us who voted for Bush, just shows the true nature of the beast. You're ok living with people as long as it's not "us" people.

Guess we'll move on but folk like you won't. Guess our minds can be changed but yours can't. Interesting, eh?
....

I don't know about that. I've been given the finger, yelled at, and even been invited to fight once at a bar ( an invitation I accepted, but the other guy said it "wasn't worth the trouble" - whatever; we were both a little drunk) because I have a bumpersticker that reads "Worst President Ever". If I see a "W" or "Bush/Cheney" bumpersticker I don't yell at the person in the car or flip them off; I just pity them and/or think that they're incredibly gullible. The sheep in this part of N.C. ( close to Hickory) evidently aren't nearly as tolerant as the ones around Raleigh. That, or else you're an abberation. BTW, when I had my "If You Can Read This, You're Not The President" sticker, some Bush supporters would actually say shit like "That's right" or "That's the truth", not realizing that the sticker was insulting Dubya....

[DrMaddVibe]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
I've never understood why a dude would choose "DEMON CUNT" as his username... :D

Because "his" mommy didn't breast feed "him" enough. It's that or "he" was dumped for being a loser one-way street and "he's" taking "his" revenge out on the board against all females...regardless of species.

[Ellyllions]

We're near Chapel Hill.

In my experience it's been very Democrat and in some cases pretty extreme. My friend recently experienced the word, "Warmonger" written in chalk on his parking spot at work.

But I don't advertise my vote choices because of such behavior. My Criminal Law professor used to tell us, "Any bumper stickers are bad because you don't know what the cop pulling you over is gonna think of the 'message' ."

[EAT MY ASSHOLE]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
My Criminal Law professor used to tell us, "Any bumper stickers are bad because you don't know what the cop pulling you over is gonna think of the 'message' ."

Really? Are you trying to tell me I should lose my "I brake for 12 year old boys" bumper sticker?

[Nickdfresh]

Where do you people actually meet anyone that gives a shit enough to care about your politics?

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
You're getting nowhere...

Yeah right.

Chapel Hill is a bitchin' rawk town. Superchunk, Spoon and a few more I can't remember.

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Because "his" mommy didn't breast feed "him" enough. It's that or "he" was dumped for being a loser one-way street and "he's" taking "his" revenge out on the board against all females...regardless of species.

Goodness! You must be so proud of yourself.

I am suprised that you get Clay Aiken's balls off your chin long enough to type such an "insightful" analysis of the DEMON CUNT.

I bet you could do better.

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
I've never understood why a dude would choose "DEMON CUNT" as his username... :D

Har!

After I created the avatar (originally a pic of Bush lapdog Tony Blair); I figured DEMON would be a good place to start.

Then, I thought following that with one of the most offensive words in the English language would make for a funny screen name.

And alas, here we are discussing it. 5 stars please!

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
5 stars please!

That settles it... you're Savicki!

[Nickdfresh]

LMFAO!! :p

Did he send you a long PM extolling the virtues of Van Hagar, like Savicki once did to me?

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
That settles it... you're Savicki!

Ah jeez, don't associate me with that douche.

That was just an inside for anyone he has propositioned.

[DrMaddVibe]

Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
Goodness! You must be so proud of yourself.

I am suprised that you get Clay Aiken's balls off your chin long enough to type such an "insightful" analysis of the DEMON CUNT.

I bet you could do better.

Looks like YOU did better by editing your typical misguided bullshit.

Looks like Elly is right!

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Looks like YOU did better by editing your typical misguided bullshit.

Looks like Elly is right!

Go DrSaddBawls, go!

[DrMaddVibe]

Whatever, Steve Cunt

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Whatever, Steve Cunt

More, more! Quick before Clay gets home!

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
My friend recently experienced the word, "Warmonger" written in chalk on his parking spot at work.

Gasp! They wrote it in chalk!?! Did he open up a can of American Shock & Awe whoopass? Or was he frightened?

Imagine how the Iraqi children feel while their homes are invaded in the middle of the night by foreign gut toting soldiers. Now that's fear.

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Where do you people actually meet anyone that gives a shit enough to care about your politics?

If you're in North Carolina and you're anti-Bush, people get downright ill about your politics.