Headlying of the day

Stevens's Reputation 'Sterling,' Powell Says

Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell told jurors in the corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens yesterday that the powerful Alaska Republican had a "sterling" reputation among the nation's military and political leaders.

"He was someone whose word you could rely on," said Powell, who also is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Yep, that's the colon Powell who lied to the world and helped bring about the Iraq war.

Here are some excerpts from his speech to the UN on Thursday, February 6, 2003:

One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.

Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eye witness accounts. We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.

The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.
[...]
We know that Iraq has at lest seven of these mobile biological agent factories. The truck-mounted ones have at least two or three trucks each.
[...]
Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulism toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people.
[...]
There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling.
[...]
Iraq could use these small UAVs which have a wingspan of only a few meters to deliver biological agents to its neighbors or if transported, to other countries, including the United States.

He accompanied his presentation with bogus US English translations and bogus sat photos.

These were all lies. Even colon Powell admits in 2005 his presentation was lies. But he just considers them a "blot on his record."

Excuse me, but a 'blot' is an ink stain, what he did was an atrocity, leading to more atrocities, leading to 4,180+ American deaths and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths.

But what would you expect from a guy who was supposed to investigate the My Lai massacre said "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."*

Later, in 2005 this colon told Larry King "I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai.[...] So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored."

By his own words he was in the unit responsible for My Lai, and he was charged to investigate it. Hmm, no wonder an underling was charged for those murders.

So why should we trust him later when by his own words he knew he'd lied to the UN.

Gosh Mr. Powell, if I'm ever a defendant in a trial? Please, please, don't volunteer to be a character witness!

Addendum one: The wrongwingers talk about the 'angry left', you're g'dam right we're angry! Even at the time we knew it was lies, we were proven right, and every day, 5 1/2 years later, we still have our patriotism being questioned for pointing out the obvious!

Addendum two: Senator Obama, if you get elected, the first thing you should do is bring the country together to solve our, and now the world's, economic crisis.

The second thing you should do is bring all these war criminals to justice.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

tried to mix with those animals, and it just left you full of humiliated confusion

Was Press a War ‘Enabler’? 2 Offer a Nod From Inside

In his new memoir, “What Happened,” Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, said the national news media neglected their watchdog role in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, calling reporters “complicit enablers” of the Bush administration’s push for war. Surprisingly, some prominent journalists have agreed.

Katie Couric, the anchor of “CBS Evening News,” said on Wednesday that she had felt pressure from government officials and corporate executives to cast the war in a positive light.
[...]
At the time, Ms. Couric was a host of “Today” on NBC.

Another broadcast journalist also weighed in. Jessica Yellin, who worked for MSNBC in 2003 and now reports for CNN, said on Wednesday that journalists had been “under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation.”

Well that's clear enough, and us DFHs have been saying it for years. But what really shocked me was the flat out lie GE, (the owner of NBC), responded with later in the article:

A spokeswoman for General Electric, which owns NBC and MSNBC through its division NBC Universal, declined to speak about the specifics of the comments but said, “General Electric has never, and will never, interfere in the editorial process at NBC News.”

That statement goes against all evidence:

Shortly after George W. Bush declared his candidacy for president in June of 1999, General Electric Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch was contacted by Bush political advisor Karl Rove. Welch later informed associates that Rove told him a Bush administration would initiate comprehensive deregulation of the broadcast industry. Rove guaranteed that deregulation would be implemented in a way that would create phenomenal profits for conglomerates with significant media holdings, like GE.
[...]
In 1988, NBC News president Lawrence Grossman insisted to Welch that news was a public trust and should not be subjected to the same pressure to make profits that was applied to other GE units. Welch fired him.

In 1999, the GE chairman decided that it was no longer good enough for NBC News to just be profitable. Seven years of a frequently uncooperative Democratic Administration, combined with the Rove-inspired vision of spectacular profits through deregulation, now motivated Welch to take action.

He began to aggressively, but very discreetly, evangelize the gospel of corporate media as corporate lobbying tool. It was not a new concept; in the opinion of many, it was already the status quo. But from Welch’s point of view, the corporate news organizations were not living up to their potential.

The mainstream media could make George W. Bush president.
[...]
Welch viewed Al Gore as the candidate of the parasites. Gore voters were not the generators of wealth; they were the consumers of taxes. Welch privately described the typical Gore voter as “someone who needs all these goddamned social programs because she’s too goddamned dumb to keep her legs crossed and too goddamned lazy to get an abortion.”

And it's not like Welch is alone, Rupert Murdoch has done the same thing in the print media.

There is no longer a divide between the corporate and news divisions, and for GE to pretend otherwise is just ludicrous.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has more:

Interview with former "Donahue" producer and MSNBC pundit Jeff Cohen

One of the most amazing aspects of this week has been watching network media stars feign shock over the fact that anyone could suggest that they were "deferential, complicit enablers" of the Bush march to war. It's as though they never heard anyone ever suggest such a thing until George Bush's own Press Secretary mocked them for being meek, uncritical disseminators of government propaganda, and now -- they seem to want to convey -- they're just so confused and astonished that anyone could possibly think that about them.

Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

4,000+

We all know about the 4,000 confirmed American soldiers' deaths in Iraq.

But how many more are there like this?

Joan McDonald believes her son was a casualty of the war in Iraq, but the Army says that while he did suffer a severe head wound in a bomb blast, the cause of his death is undetermined, keeping him off the casualty list.

5 years. 4,000+ American deaths. 30,000+ American casualties. 100,000+ Iraqi deaths.

No end in sight.




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Let's See a Show of Hans

A war of utter folly

Responsibility for this spectacular tragedy must lie with those who ignored the facts five years ago

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy - for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity.
[...]
The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war. It is improbable that the governments of the alliance could have sold the war to their parliaments on any other grounds. [...]
Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003.

By then, Unmovic inspectors had carried out some 700 inspections at 500 sites without finding prohibited weapons. The contract that George Bush held up before Congress to show that Iraq was purchasing uranium oxide was proved to be a forgery.
[...]
They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist. Nor could they succeed in the declared aim to eliminate al-Qaida operators, because they were not in Iraq. They came later, attracted by the occupants. A third declared aim was to bring democracy to Iraq, hopefully becoming an example for the region. Let us hope for the future; but five years of occupation has clearly brought more anarchy than democracy.
[...]
In 1945 the US helped to write into the UN charter a prohibition of the use of armed force against states. Exceptions were made only for self-defence against armed attacks and for armed force authorised by the security council. In 2003, Iraq was not a real or imminent threat to anybody.
[...]
Washington and Moscow must begin nuclear disarmament. So long as these nuclear states maintain that these weapons are indispensable to their security, it is not surprising that others may think they are useful. What, really, is the alternative: invasion and occupation, as in Iraq?

'nuff said.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

It's the end of the world as we know it ... and I feel fine

Did you know a Weapon of Mass Destruction was detonated in a Londonderry, PA market this weekend!?

Pellets hit crowd in blast at flea market

An Elizabethtown man was charged Saturday with possessing a weapon of mass destruction after police said he ignited a device filled with plastic pellets inside Saturday's Market in Londonderry Twp., hitting at least five people and causing alarm in the building.
[...]
The device looked like a plastic Easter egg with a firecracker inside, said Peggy Beckley, the market's vendor manager. She said the pellets, like those used for an air gun, were inside.
[...]
Beckley said she was startled by the loud sound and the pain of the plastic pellets hitting her.

"It sounded like a window shattering to me, but some people said it sounded like a gun going off," she said.

No one was taken to a hospital, Beckley said.
[...]
He was charged with possessing a weapon of mass destruction, risking a catastrophe, recklessly endangering another person, disorderly conduct and simple assault.

I admire that this print reporter was able to report the 'WMD' (AKA firecracker) going off in the Londonderry flea market with a straight face, (actually I guess it was with straight type ... not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I especially admire that Liz Collin of a local CBS affiliate was able to report on the horror, Oh the horror I tell you, with a straight face, (there's definitely something wrong with that.):

Police say Camp did it right in front of two security guards working at the front entrance. No one was hurt but police say the plastic air-gun pellets hit five people.
[...]
Camp is from Elizabethtown. He was released on $5,000 unsecured bail last night.

Do ya think they're aware that this charge is going to make a laughingstock of their local criminal justice system?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Jeebus have we lowered the bar. Dog nose Colon Powell* would have had even more non-existent WMDs for his dog and pony show before the UN 5 years ago today, if he'd just known a firecracker and harmless plastic pellets were WMDs!

And frankly I don't give a damn that he considers the "pre-Iraq U.N. speech a 'blot' on his record"

Happy 5th suckiversary Colon!

May you suffer the same fate as all the 3,954+ Americans and the one million+ Iraqis have from your lies.


*I didn't mistype his name, the only way anyone could be that full of $hit is that they would have to be a colon.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

HeadLyings!

Intel Chief Blasts 'Cherry Picked' Intel

WASHINGTON -- National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell said Tuesday he would resign if administration officials mischaracterized or "cherry-picked" intelligence to support their own political agenda.

"If it were cherry-picked in an inappropriate way, then for me, that's a professional obligation to object, and I would submit my resignation," McConnell told reporters.

In the first place I'm not willing to trust a guy who says he doesn't know if water boarding is torture, and his excuse of 'not being briefed on it' is lame considering it's already been classified and prosecuted as torture by the US, but one also has to wonder at his integrity when he implied it was OK to cherry-pick the data resulting in National Intelligence Estimates if it wasn't used "in an inappropriate way."

What appropriate way is there to lie, whether by commission or omission, about data that lead/leads our country to war?

But wait, there's more!

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear programme, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.
[...]
The draft NIE first completed a year ago, which had included the dissenting views, was not acceptable to the White House, according to the former intelligence officer. "They refused to come out with a version that had dissenting views in it," he says.

More here.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak