We might as well discuss the case here; it’s being discussed everywhere else.
Remember, though:
(Advice to the Right) The fact that she was involved with the antiwar movement means that she was involved with the antiwar movement. Try to avoid painting with too wide a brush.
(Advice to the Left) The fact that she is the second cousin to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card means that she is the second cousin to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card. Try to avoid accusations of blood guilt.
(Advice to everybody) The fact that the media picked and chose what to report means that the media picked and chose what to report. Nobody’s happy about how they did it.
Moe
You guys go ahead. I no more would enjoy talking about this than the Peterson, Bryant, or other cases in the system.
1) Pre-trial press scrutiny almost always favors the prosecution, and tends to push me pro-defendant, even when unjustified.
2) Before the arrest, we discuss rumor. After the arrest comes the time to talk evidence, of which there is absolutely none til trial and a judge decides what is admissable. None.
3) If you want to talk about her associates, I will stipulate these are not my favorite range of politicians. But people can differ strongly on what is in America’s best interest in thought, word, and deed without crossing the line into treason or sedition.
moe, you sure are carving out a “fair and balanced” rep for yourself lately.
“moe, you sure are carving out a “fair and balanced” rep for yourself lately.”
It’s that or start screaming.
“It’s that or start screaming”
Is there too much going on right now, or am i watching too much news? You could have picked about ten other topics from today’s paper.
Well hell. You haven’t left us anything.
What are we supposed to do? Pull a bob and calmly and rationally discuss the issues and implications without resorting to clannishness and rancor? I daresay not!
Nice post, Moe. But I get the impression she was a nut, and if so her associations aren’t relevant to anything.
Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not a bad idea.
So my only thought is that you would have to be a world-class moron to sell secrets to an enemy power for $10,000.
I’m actually leaning towards defense based on the ‘nobody is that stupid’ principle, but I’m willing to be swayed.
“So my only thought is that you would have to be a world-class moron to sell secrets to an enemy power for $10,000.”
You’d be surprised: we pay reasonably well for information, but most of the rest of the world’s intelligence services don’t. No real incentive to, after the first hook gets set – and a lot of spy agencies don’t have all that much of a budget anyway.
Or so I’ve been told.
“Is there too much going on right now, or am i watching too much news?”
Too much going on right now: my temper is close to meltdown, so I’m trying to be extra careful. You should have seen the first draft of this particular post…
“So my only thought is that you would have to be a world-class moron to sell secrets to an enemy power for $10,000.”
Oh, that’s who you’re talking about. The name didn’t register anything. I see no reason why people like who she’s supposed to be don’t exist. It’s entirely plausible to me. Stupid from a conventional point of view, of course.
Just another occupational hazard in this big ghastly dance. If this is a war then it’s a very different one and there really aren’t any rules that you can expect the opposition to play by. Doesn’t mean we should abandon them, of course.
So my only thought is that you would have to be a world-class moron to sell secrets to an enemy power for $10,000.
That was my first thought too. That and that Moe’s approach has left nothing to comment on here, dammit.
I’m actually leaning towards defense based on the ‘nobody is that stupid’ principle, but I’m willing to be swayed.
I wish I could believe “nobody is that stupid” but we’ve seen all too many proofs to the contrary, especially over the past three years. I would say, rather, that we simply don’t know (at the moment) whether or not she’s actually guilty of the crime she’s alleged to have committed – and that (though at the moment we don’t know enough to speak to her guilt or her innocence) there have been enough instances over the past two or three years of people being arrested unjustly and detained without evidence for me to take a “nothing proven yet” stance with ease.
Actually, Moe neglected to mention that this woman is a former staffer for three Democratic members of Congress. Not saying that means anything, just to be complete on the “fair and balanced” approach. Especially when the second-cousin bit is what makes it into the headlines.
You’re welcome, Moe.
Actually, she’s not accused of selling any secrets, and the $10,000 was for expenses, etc. She accused of wanting to be a spy and conspiring to be a spy.
A nutcase and a weird espionage case.
A nutcase and a weird espionage case.
Now you’re being judgemental. I thought this was a fair and balanced thread?
I wonder if the Libyans gave her up.
I’m afraid I cannot share Mr. Lane’s restraint here: It is not irrelevant that this woman who is associated with the far Left-wing of the Democratic Party — the same Left-wing that gave us such politicians as those who went to Baghdad to parrot the propaganda of Saddam Hussein and accusing the American President of lying — is credibly accused of treason.
As Whittaker Chambers, who knew a thing or two about teason, wrote: “Other ages have had their individual traitors —- men who from faint-heartedness or hope of gain sold out their causes. But in the 20th century, for the first time, man banded together by millions, in movements like Fascism and Communism, dedicated to the purpose of betraying the institutions they lived under. In the 20th century, treason became a vocation whose modern form was specifically the treason of ideas.”
It was only a matter of time.
As far as we know right now, if she was a spy she was a spectacularly incompetent one. If she’s the best the communist, statist antiwar Left* can come up with, I don’t feel threatened at all.
So, stow the invective already. She was so deeply entrenched in the Democratic Party elite that she was unable to keep a staffing job for more than a couple of months. Oooooh.
It’s more sensible (not to mention supportable) to maintain that she’s just a wingnut.
*This blog doesn’t have just-kidding tags; so deal with it.
Her competence is hardly relevant here. Treason is not a matter to be judged on pragmatic or utilitarian grounds, as if we only condem a traitor if he or she is effective. To do so is akin to ignoring the attempts at infidelity of a husband or wife simply because they fail.
We are all relieved and amused by the stories of criminals afflicted by an almost pathetic stupidity: but these should not alter our judgment of the wrongness of the crime.
One is tempted to interpret the effort to dismiss this kind of thing by emphasizing the incompetence or mental incapacity of the accused as containing a cynical edge.
Last year there was the spectacle of ANSWER, revealed in all its depraved glory as a intransigently Communist organization, but incurring only muted and grudging condemnation from many leftists. I do not say that this even approaches that ugly episode in importance, but merely that it adds another datum to an old story.
Her connection to Card is less important than her relationship with her nutso Republican father who ran for governor of Alaska in 1998 and ran into legals problems over that campaign (do they prosecute Rebulicans in Alaska?). This is the same Rebulican party that gave us Aldrich Ames, Katrina Leung and Edwin Earl Pitts (the list goes on).
(Sheepishly) – sorry, there’s something about Paul’s right-wing nuttery that makes me respond with my own brand.
Four actually – Congressman Peter DeFazio (OR), then-Congressman and now Senator Ron Wyden (OR), former Senator Carol Mosley-Braun (IL), and most recently, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (CA) although Mosley-Braun is trying to pretend that she “doesn’t remember” her former press secretary.
Oh and the false moral symmetry doesn’t work since the only thing useful to be gleamed from the Kos piece is that that “[b]y communicating with Card, Lindauer essentially informed on herself” which leads me to think that Andy Card may have turned her in. In which case the politics of her relatives (who have no choice about being related to her) are irrelevant unless it is to show that he had the intergrity to turn in her in, even if she was distantly related to him.
In contrast though it seems that the Kos piece is trying to minimize the actual charges against Lindauer by deliberately not mentioning that the undercover agent she met with whom she thought was Libyan was for the purpose of discussing “support[ing] resistance groups in post-war Iraq” and “the need for plans and foreign resources to support these groups operating within Iraq.” Did this woman think that she was going to help provide foreign resources to the insurgents planting bombs in Iraq who are murdering Iraqi civilians, American servicemen, and those of our allies?
Frankly that’s a far more important detail, particularly given the events of yesterday to one our staunchest allies.
Treason is not a matter to be judged on pragmatic or utilitarian grounds, as if we only condem a traitor if he or she is effective.
True, and I have no issue with that. But playing guilt-by-association isn’t all that smart, as fabius so ably [ahem: where IS that just-kidding tag?] demonstrated.
“One is tempted” if one is an idiot.
The crazy fringe Christian right killed 168 Americans less than a decade ago, and cfCr groups are still stockpiling terror arsenals in this country (without a lot of press attention), but that because they’re _crazy_. It doesn’t reflect on the sane Christian right. That a woman insanely thought she could be a peacemaker (aka a child of God) doesn’t reasonably reflect on anyone else – maybe she’s a nutty leftist, maybe she’s a nutty pacifist, maybe she’s a nutty Christian who takes the Sermon on the Mount a bit personally.
Anyway, this administration, even more than the last, seems to be a bit quick on the trigger in making charges of treason, but here I see only megalomaniacal stupidity so far.
he same Left-wing that gave us such politicians as those who went to Baghdad to parrot the propaganda of Saddam Hussein and accusing the American President of lying
*blinks*
Paul, Donald Rumsfeld – who went to Baghdad not merely to parrot Saddam Hussein’s propaganda, but to arrange to sell him WMD – is hardly from the Left.
No, I know that when you parrot stuff like that, you’re not looking at the Reagan-Bush politicians who actively supported Saddam Hussein. Rightists never do.
So, moving on: When the American President lies to the US public, to US Congress, and to the UN, in order to get the US into a war of aggression, I’m embarrassed that more politicians, Left or Right, haven’t stood up and pointed out that George W. Bush lies.
The crazy fringe Christian right killed 168 Americans less than a decade ago
There’s more than enough silliness to go around, it appears. The “crazy Christian right” didn’t kill anyone; Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols did.
If Fabius or Slartibartfast wants to develop and articulate (in good faith) a case for the idea that becoming a Republican, or associating with Republicans, can lead to treason, let them do so. I will not reject entertaining the arguments out of hand with catchphrases about guilt-by-association. An analogous case is made almost daily in the public sqaure that associating with Republicans can and often does lead one to become a racist. This, too, I will not dismiss out of hand (though it is way off-topic).
My point is that our knee-jerk repugnance toward guilt-by-association need to be examined. It is not a dogma but rather a rule of thumb, a concession to prudence; it might be right as rain in a given circumstance to reject guilt-by-association; or it might be hidebound folly to do so.
To associate with Communists or Nazis in a explicitly political capacity, I think we all will agree, is to make oneself guilty. What about associating with terrorists? What about associating with the enemies of one’s country?
Jesurgislac wrote:
Really? Evidence please.
Rilkefan wrote:
Except of course for the inconvenient fact that Timothy McVeigh was an atheist.
Jesurgislac:
Let us assume, arguendo, that Don Rumsfeld did go to Baghdad and sell Saddam WMD: What of it? Was Baghdad our enemy at the time? The question under examination here is the question of treason, not foreign policy ethics.
Rilkefan:
I have no hestitation calling McVeigh a traitor, and affirming the guilt-by-association of anyone who knowingly associated with him and his schemes, which might now include Gore Vidal. His execution was just.
What McVeigh had or has to do with Christians is rather unclear.
If Fabius or Slartibartfast wants to develop and articulate (in good faith) a case for the idea that becoming a Republican, or associating with Republicans, can lead to treason, let them do so.
I’m going to wait for you to tell me how this makes any sense at all, in the context of my prior posts. And then I’m going to have to put on my official VRWC ass-kicking boots and have a go at you. I’m a Republican, Paul. Not a vote-the-ticket-at-any-cost Republican, to be sure, but that’s neither here nor there.
Does anyone besides me think it’s mighty odd that Moe and I appear to occupy a centrist position on this issue? I’m beginning to feel like Steven Wright, here.
Ah, Slarti, you ruined it. For one brief second we were fellow tavellers. Let’s bust out a hardy redition of Kumbaya for old times sake.
Paul Cella wrote:
Whoa there, I get your overall point about foreign policy ethics but let’s not “assume” anything. Jesurgislac made a serious (albeit irrelevant) charge without any support. I do not think we should let this slide. S/he needs to either put up or shut up.
What’s the evidence the Donald Rumsfeld sold or tried to sell any WMD to Iraq?
Slartibartfast:
My point was simply that it is not a priori “out-of-bounds” to consider the question of whether holding certain political views makes one more susceptible or open to treasonous ideas, and thereby open to treason. To make that more explicit (some will say, with justice perhaps, more inflamatory), I do indeed believe that left-wing politics, in the right amalgam, can make men sympathetic to treason. Between 1989 and September 11, 2001, there was no solid ground on which to anchor treason, for the Communist International was no more, thus eliminating the solid ground which anchored Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White; but now we have a new opponent, and thus a new place to anchor the “vocation” of treason.
Mr. Winston:
I’d like to see this evidence as well, although even if it existed it wouldn’t particularly bother me. To sell weaponry to Iraq in the 1980s, when the whole geopolitical calculation over there was still formed (properly) by the Cold War, is altogether different than what McDermott did when he (and someone else whose name eludes me) went over there to undermine our own government as it prepared for war.
Association with bad actors can be a bad thing, Paul, with that we can agree. Alls I’m saying is that Susan Lindauer was raised by a nutball Republican. That had to have a negative effect. Poor girl never had a chance.
Lindauer is second cousin to Andrew Card, but as MSNBC reported, it was her second cousin who turned her in. You can’t choose family.
The NY Times reported: Speaking to television news reporters as she was led away from an F.B.I. office outside Baltimore, Ms. Lindauer described herself as an antiwar activist and said she was innocent. “I did more to stop terrorism in this country than anybody else,” she said.
Susan Lindauer is a deranged left-wing loony tune who can’t hold down a job. She is a sad story, not unlike Pat Buchanan’s mentally unbalanced brother.
Rumsfeld Gives Saddam Go Ahead to Nuke Iran. Well, maybe not. It has been suggested that the same vials that Powell used in his presentation at the UN were the ones Rumsfeld used to carry anthrax to Saddam. Since I’m the one who suggested it, though, I’d take it with a grain of salt.
She is a sad story, not unlike Pat Buchanan’s mentally unbalanced brother.
Or Pat Buchanan’s mentally unbalanced Brother’s brother. OK, I take it back. I kinda like ol’ Pat dispite his, er, deficiencies.
“In the 20th century, treason became a vocation whose modern form was specifically the treason of ideas.”‘ Paul Cella
As I have said, these people’s (the woman & her associates) politics are far from my own. And I will stipulate that these kinds of activities seem to arise more often in the Democratic party than its opposition. Although still, perhaps not *that* often.
The Democratic Party is the party of almost uncontrolled liberal pluralism, almost defining itself as such. And so perhaps attracts a greater amount of outliers and extremists.
But a lack of clear ideas is not the same as intentionally treasonous ideas (tho Mr Cella may think them related). And fuzzy-mindedness and irresponsibility are not treason.
The Democratic Party is the party of almost uncontrolled liberal pluralism, almost defining itself as such. And so perhaps attracts a greater amount of outliers and extremists.
Bob. I think you are all wet in this but if it’s true it’s because the Repulican put their extremists in positions of authority.
The question under examination here is the question of treason
Just so we’re clear, Susan Lindauer is not charged with treason. Nor is she charged with spying (whatever the headline writers may believe). If you look at the indictment, she’s charged with (1) failing to register as a foreign agent; (2) conspiracy to fail to register as a foreign agent; and (3) violations of 18 USC 1001 (which makes it illegal to lie to certain govt. agents in certain circumstances.) 1 & 2 are technical violations, and do not require her to have passed any secrets to the Iraqis. #3 is basically the same charge that tripped up Martha Stewart.
I agree with Paul that “it is not a priori ‘out-of-bounds’ to consider the question of whether holding certain political views makes one more susceptible or open to treasonous ideas, and thereby open to treason.” But the Lindauer case is not (yet) evidence in support of this thesis.
I take Mr. McManus’s point, but it is worth correcting him: the quotation he cites is not mine but Whittaker Chambers’s. Chambers was indeed a traitor, though redeemed, as well as a literary giant; his memior Witness is one of the great works of teh twentieth century. No education man should fail to read it. And he will never think on Communism the same after doing so.
“Bob. I think you are all wet in this but if it’s true it’s because the Repulican put their extremists in positions of authority.”
Well, just to be fair and balanced 🙂
The right may have a corresponding problem in sedition, revolution, secession. And I often fear Republicans view the Constitution as a conditional and contingent document.
But the right, far less often, take their arguments outside our borders.
Whoa back, Thorley. Paul Cella, not me, charged American politicians with having a connection with Saddam Hussein. If it’s irrelevant for me to point out politicians on the right who have a provable connection with Saddam Hussein, it was equally irrelevant for Paul Cella to do so – and he did it first. 😉
Jesurgislac wrote:
Here is what you wrote originally:
The question you raised was not about a mere connection to Saddam Hussein. You in fact are clearly claiming that Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad to arrange to sell WMDs to Saddam Hussein. Now either produce the evidence to support the charge or withdraw it.
And yet, Jesurgislac, your association with Paul Cella has raised a red flag to me as well as Thorley. I await your book on communism.
Boy, “fair and balanced” leads to nothing but trouble.
But the Lindauer case is not (yet) evidence in support of this thesis.
Precisely what I was getting at. Actually, I was getting at that the basic facts of the case are still largely unknown, so jumping to conclusions at this time is intellectually…unwise. Unless you’re Jesurgislac, and can read Lindauer’s mind.
10 7 5 3 0
Aryan Repub Chaffe Democ Answer
Nations Communis
Does anyone think this unfair?
I view politics as a continuum kind of thing
Mort Sahl, in the early sixties, had a very funny routine using this kind of chart
Ahh had a graph, looked good in preview, didn’t post
Assume the graph
10 Aryan Nations
7 Repub
5 Chaffee
3 Democrats
0 Answer,Commies
Thorley, here’s what Paul Cella wrote, in the comment which I responded to: It is not irrelevant that this woman who is associated with the far Left-wing of the Democratic Party — the same Left-wing that gave us such politicians as those who went to Baghdad to parrot the propaganda of Saddam Hussein and accusing the American President of lying — is credibly accused of treason.
If it was irrelevant for me to point at politicians on the Right who have direct connections with Saddam Hussein, such as Donald Rumsfeld, it was equally irrelevant for Paul Cella to point at unspecific “politicians on the Left” whom he claims have direct connections with Saddam Hussein. Not to mention his rather disingenuous association of “politicians with connections to Saddam Hussein” with “politicians who have pointed out, accurately, that Bush is a liar”. The first group are certainly morally dubious, though Paul Cella appears willing to overlook it in right-wing politicians: the second group are merely exercising every free citizen’s right and obligation.
Slarti: Actually, I was getting at that the basic facts of the case are still largely unknown, so jumping to conclusions at this time is intellectually…unwise.
Agreed. 😉
Damn. Didn’t even get a chance to set the hook.
Ah, Slarti, you ruined it. For one brief second we were fellow tavellers. Let’s bust out a hardy redition of Kumbaya for old times sake.
Consider it done, followed by a pint of your choice. I look on it more like temporary occupants of the Island of Sanity, though. Which, I believe, is somewhere in Asia. I’ve been there a few times but inevitably get disOriented.
Jesurgislac:
I wasn’t specific enough. I did not accuse politicians of having “connections” to Saddam. I referred to the well-known trip of Congressman McDermott and another Democrat to Baghdad several months before the war (when the build up was proceeding). They went there, visited some hospitals, etc., then talked on a Sunday morning talk show about being more willing to believe Iraqi officials than the President of the United States. Even the host (Tim Russert?) balked at the statement.
I apologize for my vagueness, which clearly caused some confusion.
Anyone else notice that Jesurgislac still has not supported his earlier charge?
One last chance, either provide “proof” to back up your earlier charge that Don Rumsfeld went to Baghdad to arrange to sell WMDs to Saddam Hussein or withdraw the charge.
Paul: I apologize for my vagueness, which clearly caused some confusion.
Apology accepted. I have to admit that I feel now I should have figured out that you were referring to McDermott – your original comment makes perfect sense now I have that name to refer to.
Thorley, I frankly don’t want to turn this thread into a discussion of the US’s role in selling WMD to Iraq in the 1980s, nor (now Paul Cella has explained his reference in the original comment to which I responded) to get into a debate about Donald Rumsfeld’s role in it. I accept that Paul Cella didn’t intend his comment to be a vague smear of all Democrat politicians, which I confess is what it sounded like, but a reasonable pointer to a specific Democrat who did indeed visit Iraq and make some questionable statements following his visit.
Rumsfeld
Not really taking a side, save to help Jerus a little
Nothing in there about Rumsfeld selling WMDs to Iraq. There’s some stuff about the U.S. government being involved in that sort of thing, but nothing about Rumsfeld personally. So unless you’ve got something else, the jury hasn’t even been selected yet.
If the level of competence shown in this case is an example of the comptence in this woman’s life, then no wonder she’s having such a pathetic mid-life crisis.
Jesurgislac wrote:
Then you should not have made the charge. If you do not produce any evidence to back it up or withdraw it, then we can only conclude that you were lying when you made it as you have had three opportunities to make good.
Mmmm. Rumsfeld.
Counterpunch is hardly a reputable news source, fabius. Nor do they cite anything at all about nuclear weapons, despite having made the claims.
And really…how scary is an electron-beam welder? A vacuum pump? An accelerometer? Answer: not at all. You can mail-order any of these. Or just make one. You can salvage a low-vacuum pump using a refrigerator compressor, and you can achieve fairly high vacuum with a homemade mercury or oil diffusion pump.
And whatever it is he means by “missile guidance systems”, is completely unclear. I’ve worked on several different missile systems, and there’s no one part that you could call a “guidance system”.
I’m not saying he’s wrong; just that the argument he makes is so poorly substantiated that it nearly all breaks down to appeal to emotion. I can’t address the chem/bio portion because it’s not my area; his case may be stronger there.
I know that the Anthrax allegations are misleading to put it mildly. IIRC during the 1980’s the USDA authorized sending strains of the Ames anthrax vaccine for humanitarian purposes to about fifty nations (of which Iraq was one) who were suffering from an anthrax epidemic in their livestock. If you have the right technical know-how (notice that the author specifies “dual-use” and not WMD as some have alleged), I suppose it is possible to convert vaccines into biological weapons (but I believed that the anthrax used in Iraq’s biological weapons program was from a different strain but I won’t stipulate to it) just like a pesticide could be converted into a chemical weapon but that’s not quite the same thing as selling someone a WMD.
Of course if we consider such dual-use technology to be WMD’s then by those standards we have already found WMDs in Iraq, which means the “Bush lied about Iraq’s WMD programs” meme has just been debunked by those who wish to claim the US sold WMDs to Iraq in the 1980’s. 😉
However if your serious point is that we should not allow rouge nations to obtain certain dual-use technology who either have or can buy the technical know-how to convert them into WMD’s, then I agree. But this is a rather tough problem as you can question anything from ATM’s to cellular phones as having the potential to significantly upgrade an unfriendly power’s military capability. You’re also going to have to make decisions about not letting some countries get life-saving vaccines for fear that they might turn them into bio-weapons.
Then you should not have made the charge. If you do not produce any evidence to back it up or withdraw it, then we can only conclude that you were lying when you made it as you have had three opportunities to make good.
No, you should conclude that I meant what I said: this was supposed to be a thread to discuss Susan Lindauer, not to discuss the US’s relationship with Iraq in the 1980s. I wrongly believed that Paul Cella was engaging in a broad-spectrum partisan smear of all Democrats (which, to be fair, his original rather vague reference to McDermott looked like), and my response was to point out (with the most specific example) that Republican politicans have also have links with Saddam Hussein.
OTOH, if Moe’s happy for this thread to convert into a discussion on Reagan & Co’s relationship with Iraq in the 1980s, fine with me.
Okay so you threw out a smear and when expected to substantiate it, made up a bogus excuse about not wanting to change the topic.
Got it.
Stating the truth can hardly be a smear, Thorley. 😉
Right so if I were to now refer to you in the future as both a liar and a coward for your earlier comments, it would not be a smear.
“it would not be a smear”
It would be absurdly wrong, and would hopefully get you banned.
So in case anyone cares, I asserted above that the Oklahoma City bombing was a case of fringe right Christian terror. Thorley disputed this. I check with David Neiwert of Orcinus and poked around on the web and would like to retract that portion of my comment, as it in fact isn’t right.
McVeigh’s world-view derived in part from cultish xtian ideology, and he was concerned with church-state incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco, but he presented himself as agnostic to the press. He was also inspired by the Turner Diaries, which are apparently plain neo-Nazi and without a religious component. It was a case of crazy right-wing terror, but to say it was xtian as well is incorrect (as were the press descriptions I relied on).
Neiwert points out some cases I could correctly have cited – Eric Rudolph, Buford Furrow, and The Order.
Rumsfeld
germs and chemicals
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
(Rumsfeld)
http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorintelligence/ussentgerms.html (germs and chemicals)
“They went there, visited some hospitals, etc., then talked on a Sunday morning talk show about being more willing to believe Iraqi officials than the President of the United States.”
Say, whatever happened with that stuff anyway? Did the President of the United States turn out to be presenting a more accurate picture of Iraq’s unconventional weapons capability than those Iraqi officials were? Or could I get that info from Google News, maybe? Because if it turns out that Iraq really was loaded with unconventional weapons like the President said, McDermott is going to look like a complete fool.
Re Lindauer. IF she took money from the Iraqis then she should rot. Because once they have your signature on the receipt for an illegal transaction, they own you. It doesn’t matter what you THINK you’re doing, you’re an easy extortion target at any time they want to hammer you. And IF she tried to materially support the people killing our soldiers, that’s beyond the pale. I’ll want her head on a pole because she’ll have betrayed me twice – once as an American and once as a peacenik – and I take that personal. IF. Because as Bob says, what you get in the early reports of these things is all prosecution perspective all the time. And even many hawks (particularly the neolibertarians) have been repeatedly skeptical of the FBI’s merits since the September 2001 massacres.
“To associate with Communists or Nazis in a explicitly political capacity, I think we all will agree, is to make oneself guilty.”
That’s a provably false statement. I don’t agree. Therefore it is false.
Guilty of what, by the way?
“To make that more explicit (some will say, with justice perhaps, more inflamatory), I do indeed believe that left-wing politics, in the right amalgam, can make men sympathetic to treason.”
I believe you believe that, and, yes, it is inflammatory.
“…than what McDermott did when he (and someone else whose name eludes me) went over there to undermine our own government as it prepared for war.”
Without debating the merits of McDermott’s actions and words here, which left me unimpressed, I wish to note that I was unaware that Congress was no longer part of oour government. When did that happen, exactly? I should like to read more about it, as it sounds exciting.
“Thorley, I frankly don’t want to turn this thread into a discussion of the US’s role in selling WMD to Iraq in the 1980s, nor (now Paul Cella has explained his reference in the original comment to which I responded) to get into a debate about Donald Rumsfeld’s role in it.”
That’s lame. If you make a claim, it is incumbent upon you to either back it up or withdraw it when challenged. I suggest “withdrawing it without prejudice” to coming back to it in future, if you wish to preserve your options. But taking the stance I said this, but I don’t wish to discuss it doesn’t fly as a reasonable tactic.
Myself, I think you went a bridge too far, but I could be wrong. There’s no shame in admitting to that, if it’s so.
Guilty of complicity in murder and mayham, betrayal and rapine; in short, guilty of organized criminality on the largest scale available to men.
Note that I said “in a explicitly political capacity,” to which I would add knowingly.
Glad Moe’s spirit of comity was able to maintain itself for 8 or 9 comments.
I’m still curious to hear about how Congress ceased to be part of “our government”, Paul. Will you favor us with the tale any time soon?
I apologize for not replying to this earlier. I’m leaving for a vacation in Arizona next week, and this week has been rushed getting ready for the trip and finishing off stuff at work. I mention this primarily because I’d noticed on Tac’s blog that some people are apt to assume that if you don’t reply within a given time, it’s because you have no answer, whereas the fact is that real-life stuff is apt to intervene. At least, it is in my life. Given Thorley had accused me of lying, and given that answering accurately meant not only being much more long-winded but also looking stuff up, I was honestly uncertain whether I’d be able to reply before I went on vacation, and I knew damn well that if it waited till April it would never get done.
I stated that Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq in 1983 to sell WMD to Saddam Hussein. This was an in-passing point about past support for Saddam Hussein’s regime: Donald Rumsfeld, among others still in power under Bush II, supported Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq when it was politically expedient to do so, just as he attacked it when it was politically expedient to do so. Moral values were never part of this equation.
Weapons of mass destruction are a term whose meaning has been expanded by Bush & Co to justify their invasion of Iraq. In the sense in which most people mean WMD – nuclear weapons – Rumsfeld never sold WMD to Iraq, nor had any intention of doing so. However, if Thorley were to assert this as proof that I was wrong, he would have to accept that Bush & Co’s definition of WMD was invalid, invented in order to lie the US into supporting an invasion of Iraq. I doubt if he wants to do this.
Using the Bush & Co definition of WMD which we may presume that Thorley accepts, which includes not only chemical and biological weapons but the means to make them, did Rumsfeld go to Iraq to sell WMD to Saddam Hussein?
It is a matter of documented fact that Reagan’s administration, which removed Iraq from the list of terrorist nations, and sent Rumsfeld to meet with Saddam Hussein and his government, was pretty much indifferent to the fact that Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. By November 1983, Iran had asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation into Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, and the US “had intelligence confirming Iran’s accusations, and describing Iraq’s “almost daily” use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against “Kurdish insurgents” as well.” (cite) In December 1983, Rumsfeld was sent to Iraq as a presidential envoy and remained there till March 1984. Again, documented fact: Rumsfeld’s only reference to chemical weapons appears to have been a passing mention in an interview with Tariq Aziz, in which he merely said that the use of chemical weapons was “inhibiting” US support for Iraq. A public condemnation of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons was made on March 5 1984, but while it condemned Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, it added: “The United States finds the present Iranian regime’s intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims.”
What I intended by my comment about Donald Rumsfeld – to point out the close relationship that he and others from Reagan’s administration have had with Saddam Hussein, unaffected by Saddam Hussein’s use of what the second Bush administration call WMD – is amply proved.
That the US sold military equipment to Iraq during the 1980s – mostly on a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” basis – is also documented.
That the US sold WMD precursors to Iraq is not documented, nor is it (at this distance in time) provable. That the US supported foreign companies who were selling WMD precursors to Iraq is both documented and provable. (cite)
So, perhaps a more accurate point against Donald Rumsfeld would be: “He went to Iraq to make sure that Saddam Hussein could buy WMD.” According to the Bush & Co definition of WMD, that is: but if you reject that definition, Thorley, you must thereby acknowledge that Bush & Co deliberately misled the US public in order to force consent for an aggressive war on a country that represented no threat to the US.
I reject that definition, of course: Bush & Co are a bunch of liars. It’s sad to say that the fact that if we’re to count Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a “terrorist nation”, then Bush & Co are rather more guilty of supporting terrorists than Saddam Hussein himself: yet this is hardly the worst count against them. (Just the most monumentally hypocritical, for those of us who are old enough to have been human rights wonks in the 1980s, as I was.)
So “Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq because the Reagan administration found it politically expedient to support a murderous dictator who was guilty of using chemical weapons illegally, both on the battlefield and against civilians” would have been the rather more long-winded, but pretty much accurate, way of putting it.