Thanks guys. You gave them the most difficult arguments; factual information.

Not worthy.

Because the person you can trust regarding the effectiveness of torture is the one who’s administration claimed they don’t torture.

Constantine on April 22, 2009 at 8:44 PM

The person and administration I trust (not the current one) did not lie about what they did, how they did it or why they did it, no matter how you want to label it or lie about their motivations.

I’ll guess had they not protected this country you’d grab a baton and lead the impeachment parade. Are you one of those “Bush was warned in August 2001 and did nothing” creatures?

I am full aware that Judge Baer’s ruling was mostly symbolic, as the chances of the palintiffs collecting the amounts of money he awarded him were remote at best.

However, the ruling is nonetheless significant, as it proves that even a Democrat, when presented evidence, can conclude something that many of his fellow travelers claim can’t possibly be true. This was later evidenced by several senior Democrats saying they had no problem with waterboarding.

As I expected (I’ve done this before) some on the Left had never heard of this legal case and ruling, which proves how well it had been kept a secret from them by a media who always hated Bush. They showed their ignorance of this case by asking me for cites to prove it actually happened. That’s not surprising, as many Leftists don’t even know that Clinton’s 1998 indictment of bin Laden mentioned his connection with Iraq.

This was followed by the Leftists immediately criticizing the Judge’s reasoning in making his decision, despite the fact that they themselves never saw all of the evidence he was presented with. Of course, this is a standard Saul Alinsky tactic; when one can’t credibly refute one’s opponent, the best thing to do is insult them and call them names.

What I find especially curious in this whole thing is that folks on the Left had no problem when other countries were tied to the 9/11 attacks. Afghanistan was a no-brainer (fitting for those with no brains), and many on the Left even claimed Saudi Arabia was somehow involved in the attacks, simply because most of the perps were Saudis.

Any true American would want to punish any and all countries that helped with the 9/11 attacks, no matter what those countries were. But for the past 8 years, one country has always gotten a pass from the Left-Iraq. Why is that?

Much of this is due to their being brainwashed by their 1960s-leftover teaching assistants, who are still bitterly clinging to their 9/10 ideal that a “secular” Saddam Hussein would never ever work with a “religious” bin Laden. But they conveniently ignore their own Democrat President making such a connection 3 years before 9/11, simply because recorded history in their parallel universe didn’t begin until Chimpy took over in January 2001.

I would ask these intellectually-challenged “adults” if they would accept iron-clad evidence of Iraq being involved in the 9/11 attacks. My guess is that they would not, because it would mean the people they hate with the intensity of a million suns were (gulp) right. Never mind that the pre-Bush Democrat Administration claimed the Iraq-al Qaeda connection. As I said, recorded history for them hadn’t started yet.

Monkei on April 22, 2009 at 3:25 PM

What the hell are you babbling about? Bill Clinton actually dodged the draft and you are whining about Cheney and the millions of others who got legal deferments?

BTW I don’t know if Baxter Greene has used this as a cite, but a blogger from Massachusetts, “mveritas”, spent countless hours of his free time translating captured Iraqi documents after we liberated Iraq in 2003. Those translations proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Saddam Hussein supported terrorism outside his country.
Del Dolemonte on April 22, 2009 at 7:36 PM

Bought the book.
Lots of info.

I think this relates:

Saddam’s Dangerous Friends
What a Pentagon review of 600,000 Iraqi documents tells us.
by Stephen F. Hayes
03/24/2008, Volume 013, Issue 27
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/889pvpxc.asp

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda’s second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. “Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.” According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many jihadist groups that Iraq’s former dictator funded, trained, equipped, and armed.

The study was commissioned by the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and produced by analysts at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded military think tank. It is entitled “Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents.” The study is based on a review of some 600,000 documents captured in postwar Iraq. Those “documents” include letters, memos, computer files, audiotapes, and videotapes produced by Saddam Hussein’s regime, especially his intelligence services. The analysis section of the study covers 59 pages. The appendices, which include copies of some of the captured documents and translations, put the entire study at approximately 1,600 pages.

I like a statement I saw blogged earlier that went something like this:

Liberals believe al-qaeda was operating in every muslim country but one: Iraq.

Typical liberal pretzel logic.

Get your niece getalife back here. At least she has more than one (insert here)

Del Dolemonte on April 23, 2009 at 12:25 AM

At least getalife knows she doesn’t have a clue where Constatine makes a complete fool out of herself acting like she does.

Constantine on April 22, 2009 at 7:52 PM

You are using Richard Clarke as a source of truth that Saddam
and al-qaeda did not have a relationship.

You must be joking with this.

The same man who got caught lying his a$$ off in front of the 9/11 commission when he said Bush did not take al-qaeda seriously and have a plan.

CLARK IS ON TAPE SAYING THAT BUSH DID TAKE AL-QAEDA SERIOUSLY AND WAS LOOKING TO IMPROVE ON THE FAILURES OF THE CLINTION ADMINISTRATION.

You need to raise the bar because using a proven lier to back up your de-bunked “Bush lied” drivel shows serious desperation.

Clarke caught in one of his many lies:

Richard Clarke, liar
Share Post Print
March 25, 2004 Posted by Scott at 6:34 AM
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2004/03/006210.php

The transcript of Richard Clarke’s background briefing of Fox News White House reporter Jim Angle and other correspondents in August 2002 rebuts point by point the lurid charges now made by Richard Clarke in his public testimony, his book, and his 60 Minutes appearance flogging his book before a prostrate Lesley Stahl.

Here’s Richard Clarke telling the world about Saddam’s al-qaeda connections:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp?pg=2

Five months later, the same Richard Clarke who would one day claim that there was “absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever,” told the Washington Post that the U.S. government was “sure” that Iraq was behind the production of the chemical weapons precursor at the al Shifa plant. “Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what happened to it,” wrote Post reporter Vernon Loeb, in an article published January 23, 1999. “But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa’s current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.”

The United States retaliated on August 20, 1998, striking al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant outside Khartoum. “Let me be very clear about this,” said President Bill Clinton, addressing the nation after the strikes. “There is no question in my mind that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that are used–and can be used–in VX gas. This was a plant that was producing chemical warfare-related weapons, and we have physical evidence of that.”

A small group of Clinton administration officials, led by CIA director George Tenet and national security adviser Sandy Berger, reviewed a number of al Qaeda-linked targets in Sudan. Although bin Laden had left the African nation two years earlier, U.S. officials believed that he was still deeply involved in the Sudanese government-run Military Industrial Corporation (MIC).

NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, and offered this report:

Iraq’s contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source, Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan. According to Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. . . . Some experts believe bin Laden might be tempted to live in Iraq because of his reported desire to obtain chemical or biological weapons. CIA Director George Tenet referred to that in recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee when he said bin Laden was planning additional attacks on American targets.

Here is another de-bunking,credibility smack down of your
hero that failed so miserably at counter-terrorism:

Clarke’s Progress
Guess who used to believe in the Iraq/al-Qaida connection?
By Christopher Hitchens
Updated Monday, March 29, 2004, at 6:20 PM ET
http://www.slate.com/id/2097901/

Ah, we meant to say no connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Well, in that case, how do you explain the conviction, shared by Clarke and Benjamin and Simon, that Iraq was behind Bin Laden’s deadly operation in Sudan? The Age of Sacred Terror justifies the Clinton strike on Khartoum on the grounds that “Iraqi weapons-scientists” were linked to Bin Laden’s factory and that the suggestive chemical EMPTA, detected at the site, was used only by Iraq to make VX nerve gas. At the time, Clarke defended the bombing in almost the same words, telling the press that he was “sure” that “intelligence existed linking bin Laden to Al Shifa’s current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.” The U.N. arms inspector upon whom all three relied at the time, for corroborating evidence implicating Saddam, was a man who has since become famous: David Kay

Using Richard Clarke as a reliable source.
Who next,
Joe Wilson.

Now back up all of your hero Obama’s talk of Transparency and Accountability by releasing “all” of the interrogation memos.

Not up to us to prove anything… the overwhelming evidence supports that Bush and Cheney fudged the intelligence in order to fulfill the PNAC’s crackpot scheme to create an American bastion in the mideast, which is why they let Afghanistan go to shit

Hey look, it’s Cindy Sheehan! Run over her with a mac truck!

Constantine on April 22, 2009 at 7:52 PM

Thanks again for the entertainment. One of your fellow robots posted the exact same “reasoning” to my same cite on another thread.

I’m impressed. Begala and Carville are getting cheap.

But then, they also held a sitting President who committed felony perjury in front of a Federal Grand Jury to be above the law, even though his own Justice Department had previously successfully prosecuted a Federal employee for the same crime.

Get your niece getalife back here. At least she has more than one (insert here)

“Cheney remains calm and courteous, …….”

…….. and not a teleprompter in sight.

Elections do have consequences, don’t they?

Where is she anyway? How come she hasnt been on any interviews or press conferences? must be nice to wonder the globe and go what you want in secret huh?

I love Dick Cheney. He is a modern day Cincinnatus, in just about every sense.

The despicable, lying scumbags in the White House and Congress, today, couldn’t hold a candle to a true patriot and person of intellect as Dick CHeney. The junta occupying Washington is not fit to lick his shoes.

I hope, after this junta is finally thrown out, that they all go to trial and are found guilty of the treason that they are committing in trying to kill everything about the US and destroying the Constitution every step along the way. The Precedent thinks he is going to “break free from the constraints the Founders placed in the Constitution”? Let him defend his anti-Constitutional stand in court, the despicable traitor.

progressoverpeace

Let me second that, thanks.

Conservatives are desperate to draw the most tenuous connections between Iraq and 9/11 because the absolute worst thing for your people would be to admit you were horribly, disastrously wrong.

First off….”your people”? Interesting choice of words.

Secondly, I think most conservatives would agree that even if it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that we justified going to Iraq using faulty intelligence, that at the very least we rid the world of a slimy dictator and his two sociopath spawn, and gave the Iraqis self-determination for the first time in decades.

And while we’re talking about the inability to admit one was wrong, when are the leftists going to get around to admitting that the New Deal did not in fact end the Depression, was a colossal failure, prolonged and exacerbated the problem, and spawned the most badly designed, expensive, and abused government program in history?

That’s Social Security if you weren’t paying attention.

Only the reality of extraordinary suffering wakes some folks from the moraline daze they find so soothing and so smarmily superior.

I’m all for a grassroots movement to protest the sponsors of CNN & MSNBC.

I’m confused. Cheney always had a good “case”. He has the truth, fgs. He has EARNED our trust. Not blind trust but years and years of honorable service with no track record of telling untruths.

Because the person you can trust regarding the effectiveness of torture is the one who’s administration claimed they don’t torture.

Cheney certainly has a better case now, with the NYT’s revelation

I’m confused. Cheney always had a good “case”. He has the truth, fgs. He has EARNED our trust. Not blind trust but years and years of honorable service with no track record of telling untruths.

The correct attitude is not “Wow, the NYT report means Cheney might be right”. The correct attitude is “Cheney must know what he’s talking about” and we support him whether the NYT had come throught or not. Since they did, we can say it shows what we knew all along, that he knows what he’s talking about.

Del Dolemonte on April 22, 2009 at 7:08 PM

“The judge noted that the experts provided few actual facts that Iraq provided support to the terrorists.” Guess you missed that bit of the ruling, Ace. I guess if you ignore all other evidence (ignorance seems to be your MO)– for example Richard Clarke advising Bush that there was no AQ/Iraq connection and being told “wrong answer”.

But hey, if a judge needs to rule something to get some of Saddam’s money to 9/11 victims, I’m all for it. He can decide puppies cause cancer for all I care.

Dismiss yourself.

http://iraqdocs.blogspot.com/

At the time, our gracious host on this thread, Ed Morrissey, hired and paid a couple of translators (out of his own pocket, as I recall) to check the veracity of mveritas’ translations. Both of them confirmed his translations to be spot-on.