The CO <the_xo@yahoo.com.au> Spat the Words

Perseid wrote:

The CO <the_xo@yahoo.com.au> Spat the Words

Valerie Plame, CIA operative, exposed in a news piece by
Robert Novak who received his information from a still
secret source (widely believed to have originated in the
White House).

Widely believed? Why? By who?
Who says it came from the White House?
Who told him?
What evidence supports this assertion?

Only Novak knows who gave him the information, and he's not
talking. No other 'hard' evidence exists as far as I know.
From the outside we can speculate on possible suspects, those
with the means and motive... those with the means to know Ms Plame's
identity is a small group, and the motive had to be political (this
makes it a very small group, in fact, it could only have been someone
Plame or Wilson had *****). Bush may not have been directly
involved but it's certain the perpetrator was another pro-Iraq-war-
at-any-cost advocate (another example of Bush not having any control
over his people ?)

Plame's husband was was US Ambassador Joseph
Wilson who was arguing there was no 'yellow cake' uranium
being sought by Saddam, after having been sent to Niger
by ***** Cheny to find evidence of this (Cheny later denied
any knowledge of Wilson's mission).

What evidence exists that he was sent by Cheney?

Only his own assertion and whatever documented directive he
had been given. Wilson's life wasn't as secret as his wife's
was so I doubt he would have said it if it weren't true. If
you think this is a 'he said, he said' scenario, I'd side with
Wilson. Cheny has a credibility problem (IMHO).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame

And the Bush white house would NEVER allow the agenda to
determine what intelligence was relevant.

That has not been demonstrated IMO. If you were to say that the intel
agencies coloured their intelligence according to what they thought
the White House wanted to hear, I'd agree. The general consensus seems
to be that the agencies themselves were biasing their intelligence,
perhaps hoping to gain favour by doing so.

Downing Street Memo - US Agenda dicatating what intelligence
was deemed 'relevant'.

No disrespect, (I don't always agree with your point of view, but you
are entitled to your opinion) I can't escape the feeling that you *want*
it to be true to justify that self same position. There is a saying
that 'Hope clouds observation' and I get the feeling that you will
eagerly believe in anything that denegrates the Right, simply because
you want it to be true.

No disrespect to you. A great many people are searching for some
explanation, any reasonable explanation, of why a country of 300
million people with the largest economy in the world mobilized its
military to go after 2000 illiterate guys in Afghanistan, then turned
same military on a country that hadn't attacked us. The inescapable
conclusion is that there were hidden agendas and the attack on Iraq
had been planned well in advance by the neo-conservative elite.

With the exception of the BBC, all these seem to be heavily partisan.

I can't find the original of the supposed memos anywhere. Indeed they
seem to have no actual existence outside various web sites.

You were looking for someone to send you Xerox copies ?

The BBC transcript contains a 'reconstruction' based on material they
will not guarantee the accuracy of. I'm reminded of the infamous Bush
military records debacle on TV in the US. 60 Minutes?

Where and what is the original material these claims are based on?
Is there anything that demonstrates they are genuine, or that they
even exist in any form that could be demonstrated to be genuine?
Are we talking about actual physical documents? With signatures?
Tapes from dictaphones? What exactly?

It seems to me that if it can be demonstrated that they are a genuine
record (and if they exist in actuality instead of cyberspace that should
be possible) then you might have something. Yet it seems no one is
terribly worked up over it, including those who would have most to lose
from such material surfacing.

I think there's enough 'hard' evidence there to prove beyond
doubt that Bush lied to the Congress and the US public to get
us into the Iraq quagmire. The reason Bush hasn't been pursued
thus far, and the real issue, is how big a threat did Iraq present
say 10 years in the future ? Bush and cronies have suceeded in
raising enough reasonable doubt among Washington insiders that
no one will pursue it (then of course there's the little matter
of Bush not giving sensitive memos, minutes, and transcripts of
meetings to the executive oversight group, Congress, to allow
them to perform their job... executive privilege Bush calls it).

Much like a 'genuine' 1st Century AD Roman 'artifact'. You can produce
something that looks and feels like the real thing, but without
provenance, a definite traceable history of discovery, it's worthless.

That's definitely what the Bush monkeys have discovered. If
they withhold the sensitive documents, under the auspice of
'wartime sensitive information', then they can get away with
just about anything.

There is a subculture producing and selling off fake antiquities -
particularly coins - there is an organised gang in Toronto
that has been pushing fakes on Ebay on and off for some time, buried in
amongst the genuine ancient coin dealers and auctions. Unless you are
an expert, or at least somewhat knowledgeable in that area, you can
get burnt...

Some lies are bigger than others. Clinton lied and some woman
may have been denied justice.

Something like that.

Bush lied

Not demonstrated. If it HAD been demonstrated, he WOULD have been
impeached. That might be your opinion, until it has been demonstrated
with physical evidence and/or sworn testimony, that's all it is.

There's all sorts of evidence and testimony (Richard Clark, one
of the Bush insiders, wrote a book on the lead up to the war).
The reason no one is pursuing Bush has nothing to do with lack
of evidence or testimony (see my previous statements about the
question of Iraq's threat).

and several hundred
thousand people have died,

and Bush's cronies are padding
their wallets with fat US gov't contracts.

Which would have been the case no matter who was in the White House.

Not true. No other individual would have been stupid enough
to start a vietnam-like war in Iraq.

The CO

Saw a documentary about this on the telly a while back Co. They
interviewed all involved and some FBI/CIA folk. The concensus was that
the regime in the whitehouse leaked this to get back at the man because
when he came back from Nigeria he refused to come to the conclusion
that they wanted him to come to. The documentary was made by Danish or
Italian TV...one or the other.

And before you ask, no I don't have a link to it :-)