Bush Giving Away Anti-Terror Secrets Faster than NY Times?

Politics International Politics
21

Perhaps if the NYTimes were to mention that the U.S. government is cooperating to find terrorists via bank money-transmission systems that use electricity and telecommunications lines (whether copper, fiber-optic or whatever), then Bush would also be coming out to say how horrible it is that the NY Times has given away some “big secret.”

If “SWIFT” was supposed to be some big secret, it’s not. Everybody in banking or who deals with banks knows about this. If you look carefully on a lot of invoices going internationally somewhere, there will often be a “SWIFT code” at the bottom of all the info that shows what bank and branch the payment needs to be sent to. This “code,” of course, is no mystery – the letters basically form a scrunched-up version of the bank’s name location. As a realistic matter, terrorists (or anybody really) who wants to transmit money from one bank to another will end up “using” SWIFT just as anybody sending an email will use the internet, just as anybody making a phone call will use a telephone of some kind, and so on.

Thus, if SWIFT is not really a mystery, then the only thing Bush has to complain about is the fact that the NYTimes has supposedly “alerted” the terrorists to the possibility that their financial transactions are being monitored. We all remember how upset the administration was that many months ago the media alerted the public to the possibility that the NSA might be listening to terrorists’ phone calls. If Bush perchance thinks that the big secret we’ve tipped off the terrorists to is the fact that we’re checking bank records and trying to trace their money, then it’s already too late. Bush blew that “secret” years ago.

22

What a small, small man, George Bush… and what a big hypocrite…

news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0703nj1.htm

ADMINISTRATION
Bush Directed Cheney To Counter War Critic

By Murray Waas, National Journal
Monday, July 3, 2006

President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president’s statement.

Bush told prosecutors he directed Cheney to disclose classified information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson.

Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.

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Why is Bush the small man?

Last time I checked it was inappropriate for someone working in a government office to disclose confidential information about what they learned in the capacity of their particular work or assignment. I also would like to point out that in the Senate investigation it was determined that Joe Wilson had lied and not just once but repeatedly. Do you have anything to say about that? He lied that he had not found any evidence that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake from Niger. He lied that his wife had not recommended him for the job. He lied that he was sent by Vice President Dick Cheney. What this little article does not show, however, is that either Bush or Cheney willingly or knowingly or deliberately revealed Valerie Plame’s identity. Remember that the investigation into Libby is not about whether the White House outed an agent but whether he was obstructing justice. You do see the very important difference here. Essentially, the investigators have already said NO CRIME was committed. Libby is being investigated for something entirely different. Do you understand that?

24

There you go again… :wink: Fitzgerald’s investigation had no such limits on it. That’s a bunch of silly hogwash. Libby was ultimately indicted on several counts, but those were the ones that Fitzgerald and the grand jury felt there was good evidence for pursuing in a criminal case.

Nope. Why would “the investigators” (apparently Fitzgerald and his team) indict Libby as a way to say “no crime” had been committed. You ought to have heard Fitzgerald’s press conference when he indicted Libby.

[quote]At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby’s story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true.

It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.[/quote]

Lying under oath? In the Republican viewpoint, this was the most heinous crime in the world ca. 1998. What on earth has happened to “traditional Republican values”??

What Fitzgerald makes plain in his Libby indictment press conference is that the lies from administration officials (e.g., Libby) made it nearly impossible to tackle the other issue about whether laws were broken in the release of Valerie Plame’s identity. He used a convoluted but fairly accurate baseball analogy that’s entertaining if you read it all the way through. Here’s just a little bit:

[quote]And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?

And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.

So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.[/quote]

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Cute baseball analogy. Sorry my eyes closed before I had a chance to read it zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So, Libby as you admit is under indictment for something that has nothing to do with any “crime” having been committed in the case of outing Valerie Plame and until any verdict, he is innocent. You fearmongering rights losers seem to be most eager to take rights away before the Patriot Act can even be applied. Why is that?

Rove is never going to be indicted nor is Dick Cheney. You get that right. So you have Libby under investigation. There will be a trial. EVEN IF he is convicted, er, it will be for something that has nothing to do with Valerie Plame since it has already been determined that NO CRIME was committed. Contrast that with a sitting president lying to a federal grand jury about a matter that had a direct impact on a legal case (sexual harrassment filed by Gennifer Flowers). Now, I do not claim to admire or care about a woman like Gennifer Flowers and given our legal system, we don’t have to like the victim to award justice. That is why our system of ethics is based on “justice” and not “compassion” as some would want to see.

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No one has determined that “no crime” has been committed … except for a few loony bloggers sitting in their mom’s basement eating MREs so that they can type for hours without going to the bathroom.

Fitzgerald’s point is that efforts to investigate the situation involving the blowing of Plame’s cover was made nearly impossible via the interference caused by all the lies told to investigators. Now, they were able to catch out Scooter Libby in some whoppers told under oath. Others like Rove had to scramble and may have ultimately succeeded in creating the conditions under which they would be very difficult to prosecute. However, that’s far from saying that a crime was not committed.

Or take the OJ Simpson situation (… please!). The criminal jury, for whatever reasons, decided that they could not determine “beyond a reasonable doubt” (estimated by some legal analysts as being about 95% sure, although the quantification of something like doubt is a bit tricky) that OJ killed his ex-wife and her friend. A civil court jury was able to figure that he was more than 50% likely to have been the one who dispatched the two. Thus, OJ Simpson is somewhere between 50-94% guilty, right? Doesn’t mean a crime wasn’t committed.

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All your many hypotheticals are very interesting (yawn) but I think zzzzzzzzzzzzz that I will wait until Libby is actually convicted zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz before I worry about zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz the crime that was never committed in outing Valerie Plame zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz eyelids so heavy zzzzzzzzzzzzzz losing will to type zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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Fred Smith – Why would you consider the OJ Simpson case a “hypothetical”? Oh, right… your sloppy grasp of facts is kicking in again.

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No, it means OJ spent a shitload on his defense.

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Yes?

Who’s talking about OJ? I think you must be delirious from that ass whuppin that Tigerman gave you a while back. Boy, he had you squealing like a pig. Reeeek reeeeek reeeeek. haha

Better not speak about kickin or I will have Tigerman come back and give your sorry excuse for an ass another thorough kickin down the street. haha and on Friday of all days. whooo hoooo here piggie piggie. haha

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Since Fred doesn’t have any actual arguments to make (as usual), let the record show that the existence of SWIFT is not and has never been a “secret” and that (as usual) the Bush administration has shamelessly tried to attack the media for reporting information that was in the public domain for ages. Perhaps if Bush wants terror groups to use normal bank transfers to move their money around (as opposed to their preferred methods of using hawala cash transfers and gold), then maybe it would be a good idea for him to keep his mouth shut.

New article today in which Novak says it was Rove and another unnamed White House official.

Scumbag Novak tries to also blame CIA spokesman Harlow, but according to Harlow his involvement was only an effort to stop Novak from going ahead with publishing the White House smear leaks of classified information.

[quote]Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson’s wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak’s call, he checked Plame’s status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame’s name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.[/quote]

The Bush administration is very good at releasing classified information … when there’s an important Republican political need at stake.

32

Haha MFGR. So any proof that anyone in the administration deliberately leaked Plame’s name? Hmm? Rove? Cheney? Bush?

Let us know when you do have some proof, even if it is only 42 percent accurate like the rest of your posts. haha

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To anyone with any sense of balance, of course you don’t expose our key weapons-proliferation intelligence officers to the public (exposing their networks of connections worldwide to increased scrutiny/investigation/torture while ensuring that they cannot continue in any covert role again), but for the GOP this is how they now play the game.

It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and time again with this slimy crew. Preserving the GOP’s false image as a “friend of the military” has to top the troop-equipment fiascos going on. Rummy couldn’t even ask the sole crony supplier of armored humvees to ramp up production to full capacity until the press forced him to do it.

One can see this America-hatred in the GOP’s distaste for freedom. The Patriot Act, the indefinite detentions and the bizarre interpretations (courtesy of Alberto Gonzales) under which the president is above the law are not new things in the Republican sphere. Many of the basic provisions of the Patriot Act stemmed from horseshit that has been kicking around in the GOP for years now. In pursuit of GOP objectives at the expense of the American people, they’ll stop at nothing until not a single zone of privacy exists within the homes of average Americans.

It’s quite clear that the current crop of Republicans don’t really like America much, at least not how it has been or how it was even intended to be by the founding fathers. What’s good for THE PARTY, in their minds, is greater than the good of America.

34

I love your sarcasm and self-deprecating sense of humor. Anyone with a sense of balance? and that would include you? haha

Key intelligence officers? haha. I hate to tell you MFGR but BUT the wife of an American ambassador is not going to be sent on any covert operations. You get that don’t you. Let’s see, how about sending the wife of one of the former US ambassadors to oh I don’t know Iran? Russia? North Korea? where as an American she will certainly NOT draw attention and NO ONE in the intelligence agencies of any of these nations will think to look twice at her even though she is married to a former US ambassador. KEY intelligence officers? covert operations? haha I love this.

So you have that 42 percent of your proof that anyone in the Bush administration was deliberately involved in deliberately “outing” her? Or is it that you are 42 percent sure that 42 percent of what you have said is 42 percent accurate and of that only 42 percent is relevant? So 42 percent of 42 percent of 42 percent of 42 percent equals around 3 percent… That would be about right for a typical post by MFGR. haha

Now, did you read what Novak revealed? He said Rove only CFMD what he had found out from an official but that official had not revealed Plame’s identity as the key part of their talks. It merely came up in the conversation and afterward, the official in question, attempted to get him through a third person to not reveal this information since he realized it was a delicate matter EVEN THOUGH everyone seems to agree that given the nature of Plame’s relationship with a former US ambassador that she was never going to ever be posted to something delicate or covert. AND the only one that has been proven to have lied so far is Joseph Wilson himself (check out the Senate report) and he was found to have been lying repeatedly.

So it is not a matter of how the GOP plays the game, but how little smearsters like you like to play it. But I would not have it any other way. I seriously find your posts a mine, a treasure trove, the mother lode of inane slingsterism and I really do use this in dinner-party conversations to great effect. I simply cannot do without them. I am ADDICTED. haha

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[quote=“fred smith”]

Key intelligence officers? haha. I hate to tell you MFGR but BUT the wife of an American ambassador is not going to be sent on any covert operations.[/quote]

Fred, are you saying that she wasn’t an intelligence officer? That weapons proliferation isn’t key? Sometimes I wish you guys would think before you write.

Oh, I forgot that in the GOP fantasyland, a woman like Plame could only be “the Ambassador’s wife” and not have a career of her own. I guess you forgot that she’s had jobs with various CIA cover companies over the years under which she worked that would give her plenty of reasons to travel.

Of course, you know that the cover didn’t just get blown for Plame – one of the key issues is that her cover companies have also been blown. Something like 20 years’ worth of business cards circulating around, each of them representing a fake CIA cover business that is now completely useless except to counter-intelligence and secret police agencies in places Plame visited. With a quick look through visa and other records, it’s also probably been a simple matter for many of those police agencies to find all the other American and local “employees” of those cover companies.

When the GOP does treason, they don’t think small.

36

Not after she married a US ambassador she didn’t. Any other jobs that she would have had would not have been sensitive or required full covert status. You do see that don’t you?

Yes, that is possible BUT when she married a US ambassador, don’t you think that any “intelligence agency” anywhere in the world worth its salt might look back and reflect upon her role in any nation and that they would do so far far sooner than this “leak?” I mean what do you think that intelligence agencies spend their time doing all day? You don’t think that no one, no one at all keeps tabs of the families of US ambassadors and what they do? ditto for anyone working at any official American organization? I think that you have nary a clue as to what goes on with these types of decisions. Think about it. Once she married a US ambassador, her days as a covert operative were finished.

Prove that the GOP committed treason. I think that your 42 percent of 42 percent of 42 percent of 42 percent is getting to be a pretty small 3 percent again. Why should the GOP think small? We have you to carry out that role don’t we?

37

Fred, looks like you don’t have much to offer other than your personal guesses as to what the CIA human-resource practices might be. Perhaps you’ve been aided along in this by one of those tiresome blogs, the like of which are often the repository for the usual bunch of Hal Turner and Bill O’Reilly supporters … you know, the sorts who show up in polls indicating that their grasp of current events is a bit shaky.

Please come back when you have something to contribute to the discussion.

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What a wonderful example of irony. :smiley:

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What a wonderful example of irony. :smiley:[/quote]

Tigerman, your fur is healing up a little from the skinning you got a while ago? Well, welcome back! There’s hardly ever a dry seat in the house once we’ve finished laughing at your attempts to sidetrack discussions. :smiley:

40

Multiple personality disorder as well as suffering from bouts of incontinence and incessant, idiotic laughter?

:smiley:

I actually pity you. :astonished: