J. Moore, author of "Bush's Brain" proclaims - "Most Important Criminal

[understandinglife]

... Case in American History"

If special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald delivers indictments of a few functionaries of the vice president’s office or the White House, we are likely to have on our hands a constitutional crisis. The evidence of widespread wrongdoing and conspiracy is before every American with a cheap laptop and a cable television subscription. And we do not have the same powers of subpoena granted to Fitzgerald.

We know, however, based upon what we have read and seen and heard that someone created fake documents related to Niger and Iraq and used them as a false pretense to launch America into an invasion of Iraq. And when a former diplomat made an honest effort to find out the facts, a plan was hatched to both discredit and punish him by revealing the identity of his undercover CIA agent wife.

Patrick Fitzgerald has before him the most important criminal case in American history. Watergate, by comparison, was a random burglary in an age of innocence. The investigator’s prosecutorial authority in this present case is not constrained by any regulation. If he finds a thread connecting the leak to something greater, Fitzgerald has the legal power to follow it to the web in search of the spider. It seems unlikely, then, that he would simply go after the leakers and the people who sought to cover up the leak when it was merely a secondary consequence of the much greater crime of forging evidence to foment war. Fitzgerald did not earn his reputation as an Irish alligator by going after the little guy. Presumably, he is trying to find evidence that Karl Rove launched a covert operation to create the forged documents and then conspired to out Valerie Plame when he learned the fraud was being uncovered by Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. As much as this sounds like the plot of a John le Carre novel, it also comports with the profile of the Karl Rove I have known, watched, traveled with and written about for the past 25 years.

We may stand witness to a definitive American moment of democracy.

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

James Moore is an Emmy-winning former television news correspondent and the co-author of the bestselling, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential. He has been writing and reporting from Texas for the past 25 years on the rise of Rove and Bush and has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976. He is currently writing a book on the long term consequences for America of Bush and Rove policies, which will be published next year.

I offer the perspective that the fact that someone has more than sufficient information to write what Mr Moore has written, combined with the words of Judge Tatel in Feb of 2005, that We ALREADY ARE standing witness to as definitive a moment in American democracy as has ever happened in the 229 year history of the declared Republic.


Peace.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. He may be on to something. rove has a history of fooling with

forged materials.

[understandinglife]

2. "Fortunately, there are good signs. Fitzgerald has reportedly asked ....

.... for a copy of the Italian government’s investigation into the break-in of the Niger embassy in Rome and the source of the forged documents.

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

[understandinglife]

3. "If Fitzgerald is examining the possibility that Ledeen was executing...

... executing a plan to help his friend Karl Rove build a case for invading Iraq?


More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

[understandinglife]

4. "The federal grand jury has to at least consider whether Ledeen called...

... Rove with an idea to use his contacts with the Italian CIA to hatch a plan to create the rationale for war.

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

[understandinglife]

5. "No great extrapolation is necessary to assume that OSP, sitting inside...

... the CIA, got early word that Joseph Wilson was being dispatched to Niger to investigate the sale of low-grade uranium to Iraq.

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

[understandinglife]

6. "I have seen the spawn of Rove’s tortured mind and watched a hundred ...

... of his political scams unfold and I am confident I know how this one played out."

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

[texpatriot2004]

7. Thanks UL. "Irish Alligator" that's great. American History in the

making. I've been hooked on this story for weeks now.

[understandinglife]

10. This is one of those essays that we can only hope gets wide distribution.

He's got a couple of minor technical errors that are being brought to his attention in comments at Huffington Post, but I truly hope this essay gets wide distribution.

This guy pulls so much of the key stuff together in a really easy to read document.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

50. Peter Yost: White House Defense Crumbling in Leak Case

The evidence prosecutors have assembled in the CIA leak case suggests Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff sought out reporters in the weeks before an undercover operative's identity was compromised in the news media, casting doubt on one of the White House's main lines of defense.

For months, the White House and its supporters have argued top presidential aides did not knowingly expose Valerie Plame, the wife of administration critic Joseph Wilson, as a CIA operative.

At most, the aides passed on information about her that entered the White House from reporters, the supporters argued.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald now knows that Libby met three times with a New York Times reporter before the leak of Plame's identity, initiated a call to NBC's Tim Russert and was a confirming source about Wilson's wife for a Time magazine reporter.

More at the link, including the non-surprise that Rove rat'd Libby:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/10/20/national/w131938D96.DTL

House cleaning time, big-time .... Constitutional experts; on your mark, get set, BANG .....


Peace.

[understandinglife]

55. Rep Nadler explicitly requests Fitzgerald investigate WH deception.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5117143&mesg_id=5117143


Peace.

[MissMarple]

8. Thank you, sweetheart.

The "ever-friendly" Judy Miller. So sad.

Things are far worse than we could have ever made up. Human nature can be such a bitch, yet oddly enough, our salvation.

[Neil Lisst]

9. Rove has a long history of bogus documents

I'm convinced he was behind the doc that went to Dan Rather. Everything about it was true, but the doc was phony, and the Rove network knew it before it hit the news. THAT is why the story got turned around in two hours.

The forged Niger documents are undoubtedly the core reason the political assassinations of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were undertaken by the Bush Crime Family.




will bush replace cheney? today ...
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst/

[Hissyspit]

11. Nominated. "Important and Criminal" because it is the Iraq War

a major crime against the Constitution. And indirectly because of 9/11, because it is the criminals who let that happen.

[WiseButAngrySara]

12. Excellent as usual USL. K & R! Rove is one sick b*tard. How can this

be viewed as the "criminalization of politics" when it is, in fact, just plain criminal?

[hang a left]

13. Awesome article!!!

K and R

[understandinglife]

14. It is likely not an accident that Col. Wilkerson spoke today and said ...

<clip>

Decisions that send men and women to die, decisions that have the potential to send men and women to die, decisions that confront situations like natural disasters and cause needless death or cause people to suffer misery that they shouldn’t have to suffer, domestic and international decisions, should not be made in a secret way.

That’s a very, very provocative statement, I think. All my life I’ve been taught to guard the nation’s secrets. All my life I have followed the rules. I’ve gone through my special background investigations and all the other things that you need to do and I understand that the nation’s secrets need guarding.

But fundamental decisions about foreign policy should not be made in secret. Let me tell you the practical reason and here I’m jumping over in, really into both realms. The practical reasons why it’s true.

You’ve probably all read books on leadership, 7 Habits of Successful People, or whatever. If you, as a member of bureaucracy, do not participate in a decision, you are not going to carry that decision out with the alacrity, the efficiency and the effectiveness you would if you had participated.

When you cut the bureaucracy out of your decisions and then foist your decisions on us out of the blue on that bureaucracy, you can’t expect that bureaucracy to carry your decision out very well and, furthermore, if you’re not prepared to stop the feuding elements in that bureaucracy, as they carry out your decision, you’re courting disaster.

And I would say that we have courted disaster, in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita and I could go on back, we haven’t done very well on anything like that in a long time. And if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence. Read it some time again.

I just use it for a tutoring class for my students in the District of Columbia. Forced me to read it really closely because we’re doing metaphors and similes and antonyms and synonyms and so we’re … read in there what the founders say in a very different language than we use today. Read in there what they say about the necessity of people to reject tyranny or to throw off ineptitude or to throw off that which is not doing what the people want it to do.

And you’re talking about the potential for, I think, real dangerous times if we don’t get our act together. Now, let me get a little more specific. This is where I’m sure the journalists will get their pens out. Almost everyone since the ’47 act (1947 National Security Act), with the exception, I think, of Eisenhower, has in some way or another, perterbated, flummoxed, twisted, drew evolutionary trends with, whatever, the national security decision-making process.

<clip>

Remember what I said about the bureaucracy if it’s going to implement your decisions having to participate in those decisions. And let me add one other dimension to that. If you accept the fact, and I do today, and if you’ll look around you at some of these magazine covers, I don’t need any more testimony than that I don’t think. The complexity of crises that confront governments today is just unprecedented. Let me say that again.

The complexity of the crises that confront governments today are just unprecedented. At the same time, especially in America, but I submit to you that in Japan, in China and in a number of other countries soon to be probably the European Union, it’s just as bad, if not in some ways worse.

The complexity of governing is unprecedented. You simply cannot deal with all the challenges that government has to deal with, meet all the demands that government has to meet in the modern age, in the 21st century, without admitting that it is hugely complex. That doesn’t mean you have to add a Department of Homeland Security with 70,000 disparate entities thrown under somebody in order to handle them. But it does mean that your bureaucracy has got to be staffed with good people and they’ve got to work together and they’ve got to work under leadership they trust and leadership that, on basic issues, they agree with.

And that if they don’t agree, they can dissent and dissent and dissent. And if their dissent is such that they feel so passionate about it, they can resign and know why they’re resigning. That is not the case today. And when I say that is not the case today, I stop on 26 January 2005.

I don’t know what the case is today. I wish I did. But the case that I saw for 4 plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberration, bastardizations, changes to the national security process. What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense and on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

And then when the bureaucracy was presented with those decisions and carried them out, it was presented in such a disjointed incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn’t know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out.

Read George Packer’s book The Assassin’s if you haven’t already. George Packer, a reporter for The New Yorker, has got it right. I just finished it and I usually put marginalia in a book but, let me tell you, I had to get extra pages to write on.

And I wish, I wish I had been able to help George Packer write that book. In some places I could have given him a hell of a lot more specifics than he’s got. But if you want to read how the Cheney Rumsfeld cabal flummoxed the process, read that book. And, of course, there are other names in there, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whom most of you probably know Tommy Frank said was stupidest blankety blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.

And yet, and yet, after the Secretary of State agrees to a $400 billion department, rather than a $30 billion department, having control, at least in the immediate post-war period in Iraq, this man is put in charge. Not only is he put in charge, he is given carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw themselves in a closet somewhere. That’s not making excuses for the State Department.

That’s telling you how decisions were made and telling you how things got accomplished. Read George’s book. In so many ways I wanted to believe for 4 years that what I was seeing, as an academic, what I was seeing was an extremely weak national security operation. And an extremely powerful Vice President and an extremely powerful in the issues that impacted him, Secretary of Defense, remember a Vice President who’s been Secretary of Defense, too, and obviously has an inclination that way and also has known the Secretary of Defense for a long time, and also is a member of what Dwight Eisenhower wanted that God bless Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address the military industrial complex and don’t you think they aren’t involved today in a concentration of power that is just unparalleled. It all happened because of the end of the Cold War.

I'll tell you how many contractors who did billion dollars or so business with the Defense Department that we have in 1988 and how many do we have now. And they’re always working together. If one of them is the lead on the satellite program, I hope there’s some Lockheed and Grumman and others here today if one of them’s a lead on satellites, the others are subs. And they’ve learned their lesson there in every state.

They’ve got every Congressman, every Senator, they got it covered. Now, it’s not to say that they aren’t smart businessmen. They are, and women. They are. But it’s something we should be looking at, something we should be looking at. So you’ve got this collegiality there between the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President. And then you’ve got a President who is not versed in international relations. And not too much interested in them either.

And so it’s not too difficult to make decisions in this, what I call Oval Office cabal, and decisions often that are the opposite of what you thought were made in the formal process. Now, let’s get back to Dr. Rice. For so long I said, yeah, Rich, you’re right. Rich being Under Secretary of State Richard Perle. It is a dysfunctional process. And to myself I said, okay, put on your academic hat. Who’s causing this? Well, the national security advisor. Even if the framers didn’t envision that position, even if it’s not subject to confirmation by the Senate, the national security advisor should be doing a better job. Now, I’ve come to a different conclusion.

Full transcript at the link:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c925a686-40f4-11da-b3f9-00000e2511c8.html

Relevant DU link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5106363&mesg_id=5106363

Relevant Daily Kos link:

http://dailykos.com/story/2005/10/19/203352/53

Josh Marshall takes note:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006795.php

And, link to comments on Steve Clemons' TWN:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001018.html

The following is a transcript of talk given by Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January (2005).

Yes -- "... you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence. Read it some time again."



Peace.

[understandinglife]

17. Ray McGovern: "Chickens Come Home To Roost on Cheney"

Indictments are expected to come down shortly as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald completes the investigation originally precipitated by the outing of a C.I.A. officer under deep cover. In 21-plus months of digging and interviewing, Fitzpatrick and his able staff have been able to negotiate the intelligence/policy/politics labyrinth with considerable sophistication. In the process, they seem to have learned considerably more than they had bargained for. The investigation has long since morphed into size “extra-large,” which is the only size commensurate with the wrongdoing uncovered — not least, the fabrication and peddling of intelligence to “justify” a war of aggression.

The coming months are likely to see senior Bush administration officials frog marched out of the White House to be booked, unless the president moves swiftly to fire Fitzgerald—a distinct possibility.

More at the link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/10/chickens_come_h.html

Too late the fire Fitzgerald, I'd say. The GJ is the operator and they have likely already connected Fitzgerald to 1.800.IndictW ....


Peace.

[understandinglife]

46. Steve Clemons posts some useful links and important insights on Col. ....

.... Wilkerson's courageous speech, including links to the full video and links to the full transcript + the Q/A session:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001019.html

And, one quote:

But it's clear that Wilkerson felt he had to go farther than Powell and Richard Armitage probably ever will -- at least while President Bush is still in office -- because of the loyalty that Col. Lawrence Wilkerson feels to the nation as a whole.

Peace.

[understandinglife]

65. Milbank: "Larry Wilkerson seethed quietly during President Bush's first

... term. Yesterday Colonel Wilkerson made up for lost time.

He said the vice president and the secretary of defense created a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign policy. He said of former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith: "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Addressing scholars, journalists and others at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson accused Bush of "cowboyism" and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak." Of American diplomacy, he fretted, "I'm not sure the State Department even exists anymore."

And how about Karen Hughes's efforts to boost the country's image abroad? "It's hard to sell ," Wilkerson said, quoting an Egyptian friend.

<clip>

"You and I and every other citizen like us is paying the consequences," he said, "whether it was a response to Katrina that was less than adequate certainly, or the situation in Iraq which still goes unexplained."

The colonel said his old boss is not pleased with his decision to go public with his criticism. Powell, he said, "is the world's most loyal soldier." Wilkerson said he admired that, but he took a different view of loyalty: not to the administration, but to the country.

From Colonel Finally Saw Whites of Their Eyes by Dana Milbank on October 20, 2005

More at the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902246.html

Yes, we need all those who also have a ... " different view of loyalty: not to the administration, but to the country." ... to step forward and stop these criminals.


Peace.

[KT2000]

15. Journalist's assignment

list all the suspected forged document and office buggins perpetrated by rove and get to work. This jerk has been remaking the landscape of this country and he must not get away with it.

Really hope that Dan Rather is working on something.

[understandinglife]

19. "Really hope that Dan Rather is working on something."

I've been hoping that since last fall. I suspect Mr Rather does not intend to 'go gentle into that good night.'


Peace.

[symbolman]

16. This is EXACTLY the conclusion I came to in my film

"Rove's War" and that's why it's named that.. the meeting with Ledeen in Rome in 2001 with Feith, Rhode, the Head of the Italian CIA SISMI, and a KNOWN FORGER led me to believe that THIS IS the crucial moment when the causus belli for the fake war was CREATED.

Remember, Rove is a One Trick Pony - as an insane person prone to repeating what works over and over like a junkie, and then expounding upon the premise with more POWER as he recieves it, this matches Rove's MO to a T..

ROVE STOLE letterheads in Chicago as a College Republican in the late 70's, he actually BROKE INTO Dixon's office and stole them, THEN he created a faked invitation for FREE BEER and a GOOD TIME, etc, and passed them out all over the Red Light district and soup kitchens..

It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that ROVE had his own PLUMBERS ala Watergate to create these forged papers.. Ledeen was attached to Rove's office at that time..

It's all in my movie at Takebackthemedia.com, 150 minutes of RED MEAT, and after researching this for a Year I KNOW Rove, I know this guy and THIS ROME MEETING is the crux of this case..

THank god for the Irish Alligator, I hope he blows this wide open - except I'm a little worried about what ensues after that - martial law, a "new" govt being imposed by Bush's Supreme court?

it's going to get a lot scarier than you've ever imagined before it's over..

I think it's a good time to start SCREAMING for a "Special Election" by ALL AMERICAN voters NOW in case the top gets "scrubbed" by Fitz..

Good posts, thanks!

[understandinglife]

18. Thank you for all you've done. For many, I agree, with your assessment ...

.... that "it's going to get a lot scarier than ..." imagined.

For those of us who've been paying very close attention to these folk since the late '80s, it is essentially what we've realized would happen if Ike's admonishments were not just taken seriously but adhered. That did not happen. We are about to witness the consequences.

Folk like Fitzgerald and Valerie Plame and Sibel Edmonds and Larry Johnson and Congressman Conyers and Waxman and ... know just how serious the crisis is. Most of our fellow citizens do not.

Though I think a larger number than some pundits would be willing to recognize actually do sense that the malignancy (whether they know to call it military-industrial complex, or neocon, or fascist), is about to kill the Republic.

We must not permit that to happen. And, I will not at all be surprised if we reach a point in the next few weeks when an earnest discussion as to how to effect an out-of-cycle Presidential election becomes a central topic for all Americans.


Peace.

[yowzayowzayowza]

20. ...and Peace to you.

Always read, yet rarely comment on yer stuff. Your efforts are appreciated. Carry on.

:kick:

[understandinglife]

62. Thank you. It's good to know folk find the effort helpful.

Peace.

[symbolman]

21. And I thank you for the incredible outpouring you've given us

of the most salient information on this Coming Constitutional Crisis - my wife and I were talking the other day and I told her, "You know they've bandied the term 'Constitutional Crisis' around a LOT during the time they were fighting tooth and nail to insert Bush into the White House, especially James Baker (who I expect to show up any day now, he's opportunistic enough to make HIMSELF President one way or another), and now we may see one for real.."

Imagine it, if 22 of the Top people running our Govt are indicted and must step down, the power vacuum will be unlike anything that's ever happened in the History of the US.

WHO will make those decisions? I'm not even sure it's addressed in the Constitution itself, other than the Impeachment clauses, but WHO gets to Impeach Bush? Our NEW Supreme Court Leader at the helm of a totally partisan Congress?

In a way this will be a treat for them, "Gee, a SHOPPING LIST and BIG Credit Card.. Wheee!"

What I think MAY happen is a fracture within the Republican side, with about three Groups all vying for power, then there's the Democrats with Blue Dogs and DINOS floating around making Deals.. nevermind the spineless Democrats, only a small group like Conyers & friends SHOULD be the ones to make these choices in some fashion, but no one ever writes back to them and they are given the basement tables in Congress despite their being among the most Decent Americans in our country.

The Dealmaking will be what sets the course for this country, for decades - the Republicans, if we are lucky may come to their senses and start acting like conservatives - if we are lucky the American public will come BOILING from their homes and into the streets demanding Security and Sanity, but I doubt it, many are too happy with their Cheetos, new car and HD Plasma screen to care..

We may have our next govt chosen by the media, and the one they show us could be the one that's not running a thing, and that's the scariest of all.

Keep up the good work UnderstandingLife.

Peace backatcha

[Marie26]

59. self-delete

:7

[DemReadingDU]

22. Recommended, Thanks U.L.

[xchrom]

23. i hope this is how it will

come to be seen in the minds of the public.

[crispini]

24. You do realize this simply justifies my obsession with this story.

What are you trying to do, make me feel better about all the time I am spending reading background on this? :D

[understandinglife]

28. Of course ;)

Peace, my friend.

[crispini]

25. Great exposition of the Italian (Ledeen) connection here:

Fortunately, there are good signs. Fitzgerald has reportedly asked for a copy of the Italian government’s investigation into the break-in of the Niger embassy in Rome and the source of the forged documents. The blatantly fake papers, which purported to show that Saddam Hussein had cut a deal to get yellowcake uranium from Niger, turned up after a December 2001 meeting in Rome involving neo-con Michael Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhodes, and Niccolo Pollari, the head of Italy’s intelligence agency SISMI, and Antonio Martino, the Italian defense minister.

Is Fitzgerald is examining the possibility that Ledeen was executing a plan to help his friend Karl Rove build a case for invading Iraq? Ledeen has long ties to Italian intelligence agency operatives and has spanned the globe to bring the world the constant variety of what he calls “creative destruction” to build democracies. He makes the other neo-cons appear passive. He brought the Reagan administration together with the Iranian arms dealer who dragged the country through Iran-Contra and shares with his close friend Karl Rove a personal obsession with Machiavelli. Ledeen, who is almost rabidly anti-Arab, famously told the Washington Post that Karl Rove told him, “Any time you have a good idea, tell me.”

The federal grand jury has to at least consider whether Ledeen called Rove with an idea to use his contacts with the Italian CIA to hatch a plan to create the rationale for war. Ledeen told radio interviewer Ian Masters and his producer Louis Vandenberg, “I have absolutely no connection to the Niger documents, have never even seen them. I did not work on them, never handled them, know virtually nothing about them, don't think I ever wrote or said anything about the subject.” It is strictly coincidence then that some months after he and his neo-con consorts and Italian intelligence officers met in Rome that the Niger embassy was illegally entered and nothing was stolen other than letterhead and seals. And equally coincident that forged papers under those letterheads were slipped to Elisabetta Burba, a writer for an Italian glossy owned by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, and a backer of the Bush invasion scheme. Unfortunately for the pro-war neo-cons, even an Italian tabloid would not publish the fake documents and turned them over to the CIA and US government in Rome.

[DeepModem Mom]

26. kick

[ms liberty]

27. Thank you...

You are always bringing great info and analysis to DU - and I really appreciate you. You're one of those core people who's posts I ALWAYS read!

And you are so right. The crimes committed implicate virtually all the members of this administration, and they are crimes of a magnitude far greater and more deadly than Watergate or Iran-Contra, or anything I can think of in our history. If it isn't what the founders meant by "high crimes and misdemeanours" I don't know what is.

And they can't stuff this back in the box now, it's too late. The story is spilling out and gaining momentum. Even the so-called liberal media are covering it every day, and we could possibly still have a week before Fitz announces anything. We're reaching saturation point in the media with this story, and it just keeps growing. We've got the momentum - the TRUTH has the momentum.

FINALLY!!!

[understandinglife]

61. Thank you. Your comments are much appreciated.

Peace.

[rman]

29. Did this most important criminal come out of nowhere?

Or could it be that there's more where he came from, that there's an elite global crime cyndicate of sorts that is now for first time on the verge of being exposed to the public at large?

[understandinglife]

37. "Out of nowhere?" - No. How extensive the network - that we will likely ..

... learn quite a bit more in the weeks and months ahead.

But, it is that network that I suspect Mrs Wilson and her colleagues know more about that anyone else, other than the actual nodes (and, perhaps, Fitzgerald and his team).


Peace.

[symbolman]

30. Kick

Important info here folks..

[Beam Me Up]

31. "Prove to us we still live in a democracy and a nation of laws."

Right on. PROVE THAT TO US. And if the proof fails, the heavens WILL FALL!

[understandinglife]

32. "There is nothing more immoral in the life of a nation than waging an

... unnecessary war -- which Iraq surely is. It is time for America to confront the terrible truth that we have allowed ourselves to be blinded to. And it is way past time for those that led us into that war, from the White House Iraq Group to Judy Miller and the New York Times, to be held accountable for their actions.

<clip>

We could have had a sustained national discussion back in May 2002, when Time published an article describing Cheney as saying ....

We could have had a sustained national discussion in July 2003, when, following publication of Joe Wilson’s op-ed, a firestorm broke out regarding the president’s use of the Niger/Saddam uranium ....

We could have had a sustained national discussion in January 2004, when Paul O’Neill let it be known that invading Iraq had been Bush’s goal before he had even learned where the Oval Office supply closet was ....

<clip>

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/memo-to-bill-keller-the-_b_9173.html

And, as Arianna Huffington notes in this fine exposition entitled Memo to Bill Keller: The War in Iraq is NOT a "Loose End"

-- "For a variety of reasons -- including a spineless opposition and a go-along media -- the debate never took hold."

That is no longer going to be the case. I just hope we can keep it a debate and the development of a process for peaceful repair of our failed government and our grossly negligent press.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

36. "I wake up in the morning with a painful sensation, at the smell of

... infamy in the air." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson the day after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850

As your grandmother told you, "It's always darkest before the dawn." History provides so many instances of this old saw retaining sharp teeth that one should never have lost hope over the past five years of the Bush Nightmare. From the first moment Bush was forced on us by the Supreme Court in January 2001 -- after losing the popular vote by 500,000, give or take tens of thousands of votes in Florida thrown out by his henchmen -- a horrible precedent was set, undermining the entire superstructure of American history.

If one were naive enough to care about democracy, believe the words of the Declaration of Independence and consider the Constitution inviolable, then one felt as Ralph Waldo Emerson did the day after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850: "I wake up in the morning with a painful sensation, at the smell of infamy in the air."

Was there, then, a darker moment than Nov. 3, 2004, when the tricksters pulled another fast one on the American people, and Bush -- the greatest failure in American history -- was awarded a second term? It was, as one of my readers put it in a poster that still hangs over my desk, "A Day of Mourning For Our Country."

But, history has a way of inexorably and implacably moving toward moments that prove your grandmother knows best. In the East they call it karma. Here we call it justice.

And justice is on the move in America. .... <clip>

From Before the Dawn: America´s Oz moment

by Alan Bisbort on October 20, 2005

More at the link:

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:130427

Peace.

[Gregorian]

33. American vandals

Outting Plame served more than just punishing Wilson. The article doesn't mention that.


A P turns into an F by using an eraser. It's like we gave first graders the bomb.

[BamaBecky]

34. I agree UL - gave me chill bumps reading this....n/t

[Jane Austin]

35. I keep reading that Fitz has asked for or has seen the info on the forged

yellow cake documents.

How do we know this?

Thanks.

[understandinglife]

38. I think the source of this information is to Oct 19 Raimondo article:

October 19, 2005

Niger Uranium Forgery Mystery Solved?

The Fitzgerald/Plame investigation goes in a new direction

by Justin Raimondo

<clip>

Even as the FBI was following the trail of the forgers, the Italians were looking into the matter from their end. A parliamentary committee was charged with investigating, and they issued a heavily redacted report: now, I am told by a former CIA operations officer, the report has aroused some interest on this side of the Atlantic. According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and "has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA officer tells me:

"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."

Alan Wolf died about a year and a half ago of cancer. He served as chief of the CIA's Near East Division as well as the European Division, and was also CIA chief of station in Rome after Clarridge. According to my source, "he and Clarridge and Ledeen were all very close and also close to Chalabi." The former CIA officer says Wolf "was Clarridge's Agency godfather. Significantly, both Clarridge and Wolf also spent considerable time in the Africa division, so they both had the Africa and Rome connection and both were close to Ledeen, closing the loop."

A veteran of the Iran-Contra scandal, Ledeen played an important role in the "arms for hostages" scheme by setting up meetings between the American government and the Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Not all that unexpected coming from a self-proclaimed advocate of Machiavelli's amoralism. Today, Ledeen is among the most visible and radical neoconservative ideologues whose passion for a campaign of serial "regime-change" in the Middle East is undiminished by the Iraqi debacle. Just as the Roman senator Cato the Elder finished his perorations with the command "Carthage must be destroyed," so Michael "Creative Destruction" Ledeen closes his hopped-up warmongering essays with "Faster, please!," an exhortation presumably addressed to his confreres in the Bush administration.

Ledeen has kept the neocon faith – and the same friends – for all these years. He's still buddies with Ghorbanifar. In December 2001, he had a meeting in Rome with Ghorbanifar in the company of the Pentagon's top Iran specialist, Larry Franklin, and Harold Rhode, assigned to the Office of Net Assessment, a Pentagon think tank. Also at the Rome conclave: a number of Ghorbanifar's Iranian friends, including a former senior official of the Revolutionary Guard. Rounding out the distinguished guest list, we have the Italian delegation, consisting of SISMI head honcho Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, and Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino, a neocon favorite. Once again, Ledeen plays the middleman – but what kind of a deal was he trying to negotiate?

<clip>

Link:

http://antiwar.com/justin

Peace.

[Jane Austin]

40. I want it to be true, but that citation seems kind of thin.

I wish there was more to take to the bank.

[understandinglife]

41. Well, all I can do is provide you an answer to your question and ..

... that article is the only thing I've seen.

Personally, I would not make the kind of statements made in that article, "slim" or otherwise, without very solid sources.


Peace.

[Jane Austin]

42. Not criticizing you.

Just looking for more solid sourcing before I get my hopes up higher.

[understandinglife]

43. Let me add this brief bit of personal perspective about Mr Fitzgerald.

I've thought a lot about him since he was appointed in December, 2003.

He's a New Yorker.

He successfully prosecuted the WTC bombers.

He indicted bin Laden in 1998.

He watched, as we all did, the vile act of the Supreme Court on December 12, 2000.

He undoubtedly possessed more info about bin Laden and bin Laden's organization that just about anyone in the world. And, he watched while one warning after another went unheeded from 1998 to Sept 11, 2001.

He watched the planes hit the WTC.

He watched Bush and the neocons fabricate and deceive America into war while also watching Bush and the neocons sorta forget about bin Laden.

..... that's the "lens" through which I've viewed Mr Fitzgerald since December, 2003.

What is totally amazing to me is that someone with his extensive working relationships with the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and probably a deep understanding of the culture of those organizations and the critical national security issues associated with protecting our intelligence agents and infrastructure would be the person who is assigned the task of investigating acts of treason involving disruption of our ability to prevent folk like bin Laden from accessing and using WMD.

It is the one instance in the past horrible five years where a hack crony of Bush or a neoconster thug wasn't assigned to a task.


Peace.

[Jane Austin]

45. Your post is full of good points, and is very encouraging.

n/t

[understandinglife]

47. Thank you and Juan Cole offers a key little tidbit ...

.... in referencing the Raimondo article:

Justin Raimondo has developed a source in Washington who has named for him three US citizens who were involved in cooking up the forged documents that alleged recent Iraqi purchases of Niger yellowcake uranium. (In fact, the Iraqis had never had the capacity to do anything serious with yellowcake.)

Link:
http://www.juancole.com/2005/10/italian-parliamentary-report-justin.html

That little factlet is one reason why folk knew the smell of stuff Powell, Cheney and Bush were shoveling left no doubt about what it was.


Peace.

[Jane Austin]

48. Having Juan Cole link to the story gives it credibility for me.

Thanks.

[sojourner]

39. Thanks for your tireless efforts UL..........

I wish I didn't agree with the assessments being made here (by smart folks like yourself and symbolman - and many of our DU friends). Truly wish that I had an optimistic hopeful outlook, but the alacrity with which administration and media have moved on from the alarming disaster of NO and the accompanying return of the "public" into their consumerist haze give me an unease about what is about to transpire with regard to this investigation and its outcome.

NO bumbling and the seeming awakening of press and sheeple gave me a momentary sense of hope, but the attention span of both is such that the disaster (and the gov't incompentence it revealed) is now a blip on the screen. What was it Caesar said? "Circuses and bread.............."

sigh.....

[Nightjock]

44. Simply.....WOW

kick. Nominated. A must read.

[wakemewhenitsover]

49. Forged National Guard docs led to 60 Minutes canceling Niger story.

Not to mention ousting Dan Rather.

Couldn't Fitzgerald investigate whether Rove was behind planting forged National Guard records, perhaps to discredit 60 Minutes and Rather, and pressure them into canceling Niger story, since it may establish a pattern?

Wasn't this the justification for endless probing into Clinton's sex life -- to establish a pattern that might be relevant to his perjury charge in Paula Jones case?

Why aren't the forged National Guard records part of the investigation?

[robertpaulsen]

51. Franklin cooperating with Fitz!

Just to highlight one important nugget:

The other American attendees at Ledeen’s Roman Holiday are also worthy of scrutiny. Larry Franklin was recently arrested for leaking classified US government information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Ledeen sprang quickly to his defense but Franklin faces prosecution next year and is most probably cooperating with prosecutor Fitzgerald. Harold Rhode, the other American actor in this tragicomic affair, worked the Office of Special Plans (OSP) at the Department of Defense for Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Characterized as a “counter-intelligence shop,” OSP simply interpreted intelligence in a manner that fit the need for evidence that Iraq had WMD. If the CIA gathered data that said otherwise, OSP analyzed it differently or ignored the facts and then reported to the vice president precisely what he wanted to hear. Rhode also was the liaison between Ahmed Chalabi, the convicted embezzler the Bush administration was using to feed information to them and Judy Miller about the distortions and lies required to fuel the rush to war.

That would make three that Fitz has flipped: Hannah, Wurmser and now Franklin!

[Gabi Hayes]

52. do you have a website? I just printed up your American Judas thing

from H20 Man's DU thread last year...32 pages, not including hyperlinx, and it's formidable

gave a copy to coworker, and he's going to spread it around, as well

please, let this be it

Bush's Brain, btw, was one of the most difficult things to read I've ever come across. Made me madder than The Hunting of the President

[robertpaulsen]

53. No. A bunch of people have told me to get a blog.

So I'm going to meet with a friend who's more computer savvy than I am to see if he can set it up for me. Thanks for spreading American Judas around. I hope Fitz has read it.

Ah, Bush's Brain. Good documentary, but they forgot who helped give Rove his start: little Donald Segretti!

[understandinglife]

54. Thank you for adding this important information to this thread!

Peace.

[understandinglife]

56. What do you think about the speculation that the "woman" in ...

....the indictment -- USA v Lawrence Anthony Franklin; Steven J Rosen & Keith Weissman, referenced on p. 24; item 7, (.pdf below) -- is Judith Miller?

http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/dod/usfrnklin80205ind.pdf


Peace.

[robertpaulsen]

57. With Franklin cooperating with Fitz, Miller is the most likely suspect.

I'm not sure whether or not they talked about Valerie Plame, but I feel pretty confident that Miller is the one.

edited to add a copy of these questions I posed on another thread:

This is definitely a "time bomb" that raises some interesting questions. If they are referencing Judy Miller as someone who is "not in the United States government", that would seem to clear up those rumors about Judy being some kind of secret agent when she's not busy "reporting". Or does it? Is Miller a NOC herself? How the hell does someone not in the US government get a DOD security clearance? Or is she an even bigger liar than Rove?

Boy, this is fun!

[understandinglife]

58. Interesting .... here's what I think ...

... I think Miller has had access to all kinds of classified information since the days she was planting bullshit for Poindexter.

She probably has never signed an SF312, but if she has, and if she's on anyone's team it would be DoD - neoconster division ;) - otherwise known as OSP.

But, the reference in the indictment, if Miller, is probably factual -- she's a shill reporter on the NY Times payroll, thus "not in the US gov."

But, if she is the person referenced on p. 24, item # 7, you and I both know the implications of that and they are really, really bad.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

60. "Americans all have to consider the implications now of a worst case ...

... scenario -- the problems of scandal and polarization result in a meltdown of the W. Administration and a collapse of governance in Washington. No Doubt some hard core partisans and ideologues would exult. But with the domestic and foreign policy challenges the country faces, it would be a disaster for all of us.

We are in the same boat, and if it is rudderless, we all sink. So how can we deal with the consequences if that worst case scenario occurs? Here is one simple three step road map:

<clip>

From The Way Out by Norm Ornstein on October 20, 2005

Link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-ornstein/the-way-out_b_9217.html

Provocative, for sure.

I'll be interested in all your comments, for sure.


Peace.

[blue neen]

63. Holy crap, understandinglife.

Do you really think that scenario could happen? It seems so farfetched in a way, but it's all very provocative. Wow. :wow:

BTW, excellent, excellent thread. Thank you for the the information you have provided here. It makes all of the facts easy to reference. Thank you to all of you who have worked so hard to educate us: you, symbolman, h20man, octafish, and many others.

:thumbsup:

[understandinglife]

64. Thank you. And, as I noted, I posted it purely because it is provocative.

And, it's interesting that someone would blog it at Huffington Post. Didn't want anyone here to miss the fun or the comments it elicits.

I don't think W has the capacity to make a reasoned decision such as the one his father made when he decided to urge Nixon to resign.

The irony, now, of that last Nixon cabinet meeting when Bush was among the most immediate and vocal in telling Nixon he must resign.

The irony that he probably could not get his son to listen and act for the benefit of the Nation or the Republican party.

I think Fitzgerald would have to send in the Federal Marshalls to extract W from the Oval Office - the man has zero concern about anything other than himself.


Peace.

[nvliberal]

66. It's crap like this blog post which is why this "scandal" is going

to bite Democrats in the ass.

This is looking more and more like a Kenneth Starr-style crap investigation.

Politically speaking, the investigation NEVER should have taken place, because of the damage it will do to Democrats, already a minority in Congress and losing more and more seats.

The Republicans are already hurting from a myriad of other scandals and issues; we didn't NEED this garbage investigation.

This leap in logic that revealing a critic's wife's identity is the greatest scandal ever to happen to the American republic is sickening, absolutely sickening.

This isn't a "defining moment" in American democracy; election 2000 was when our democracy was destroyed, possibly for good.

Moore is full of it.

[blue neen]

67. Your user name indicates that you reside in the state of Nevada.

I believe that the actual place that you live is in the state of DENIAL.

"The Republicans are already hurting from a myriad of other scandals and issues; WE didn't NEED this garbage investigation."

Who are you referring to as "we"? Republicans or Democrats?

All Americans NEED this "garbage investigation." The Bush administration quite possibly committed TREASON in order to sell the Iraq war to the public. The Bush adminstration is responsible for the deaths of 2,000 American soldiers and the deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqi citizens, many of them children. The BFEE is also responsible for the horribly disabling injuries to tens of thousands of American soldiers, soldiers who did not have the proper equipment to protect them. Americans NEED and DESERVE to know the truth.

Ken Starr spent 70 million dollars of taxpayer money to investigate Bill Clinton's private sex life. Was that a more worthy investigation because it involved sex instead of murder? IMHO, that's what you call a "garbage investigation." Oh well, at least we didn't have to borrow that $70 million from the Chinese.


edited for typo

[PA Democrat]

68. Why are you so desperate to have this investigation dropped?

You don't seem to be aware that the whole Plame investigation was undertaken at the request of the CIA and not the Democrats. Gee, maybe the CIA didn't like its agents being put in danger by outing the identity of one of their agents and the cover company, Brewster Jennings, which gave many other agents cover.

There is so much more involved here than a single CIA agent being outed. It was the cover blown for an entire team of CIA agents who worked on proliferation of nuclear weapons. It will take the CIA years to regain the footing lost due to this "garbage investigation".

And why are you ignoring the fact that the entire reason that Plame was outed was part of a pattern of silencing anyone who dared question the rationale for the invasion of Iraq? Or do you think the Iraq War is a good thing? You mention the scandal of the response to Katrina. Well, did it ever occur to you that part of the reason that the response was so paltry was because of all of the National Guard and their equipment are tied up in Iraq?

Please, this entire Plame affair is part of the pattern of threats and intimidation used by the Bush administration to accomplish their agenda of geopolitical dominance. Sure, let's sit back and cower in fear of appearing too uppity because God knows how successful THAT approach has worked in the past 2 elections.