Letters to the Editor
Ron Smith
Published Letters: 211 Editor's Choice: 11
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Elephantman + ure = a lie
[Read the article: The Libby lobby's pardon campaign]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your friend, republican Senator Pat Roberts, chaired a committee report that mis-represented the CIA man's statement. This man said that he had asked Valerie Plame to contact her husband regarding the Cheney request of the CIA to check out the Niger to Iraq uranium story. Joe Wilson was asked for two reasons. One, he had done previous work for the CIA. Two, he still had contacts in Niger from a previous diplomatic stint. The primary point made in Wilson's report, no uranium from Niger to Iraq, was accurate. He wrote this on March 8, 2002. Cheney asked the question, but feigned ignorance of Wilson's answer.
The man at the CIA, who had first asked Valerie Plame to ask her husband, sent two letters to Roberts' committee trying to make this clear. But alas, neither Senator Roberts nor any of his staff responded. These facts and the CIA's corrobation of them were brought out when Valerie Plame testified before the Waxman Committee quite recently, May 2007 I believe.
You may want to read "The Italian Letter" , a 2007 book by Eisner and Royce. It sets forth clearly that the Niger uranium story was a hoax perpetrated by several upper level members of the Italian intelligence service, SISMI, for purposes of profit. The documents tying Niger officials to Saddam's Iraq regarding uranium were obvious forgeries. Yet these forgeries were the basis for Bush's 2003 State of The Union speech.
Recall the infamous 16 words?
"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Both our CIA and the British intelligence equivalent, MI6, went along with Bush and Blair, two men determined to strike Saddam by invading Iraq. Remember that Cheney didn't like the intelligence that the CIA gave him. So he had set up his own intell. group within the White House. In the months leading up to the Iraq invasion, Cheney and Scooter, were frequent visitors at CIA headquarters in Langley. They were putting pressure on the CIA to come up with the RIGHT intelligence, far to the right.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to Colin Powell 2002-2005, commented on the "Italian Letter", 'But the book conveys much more - the duplicity, subterfuge, propaganda, and outright lies that helped sell many Americans on the need to invade Iraq.'
So you can see Elephantman, Joe Wilson had to be silenced, discredited, etc. And as Karl Rove, that noble American once said, "His wife is fair game".
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First, A Thank You to Sidney
[Read the article: Bush's European disaster]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is a first-rate article on our President's recent travel abroad. Thanks, Sidney!
We are interested in the impressions of the world's leaders as 72% of Americans disapprove of President Bush's job performance. Do they see as we do that many of his appointments to office are based much more on loyalty than competence? Do they question, as we do, the logic of his statements?
Mr. Blumenthal offers an explanation to the disarray of our foreign policy. He writes that Bush's foreign policy (and therefore ours) "has descended into a fugue state". Blumenthal continues "In a fugue state, a trauma creates a kind of amnesia in which the sufferer is incapable of connecting to his past."
A psychiatrist wrote a book relating how he measured the mental health of his patients. He used something called the "Rappaport Time Line". We all have a 'time line'. It is the continuum of our past, present, and future. For solid mental health we should be comfortable moving without distress from our past, to our present, and looking into our future. Do we see events realistically?
To help us see things realistically we need an honest and an engaged free press. This free press is helpful to the President as well. We cannot allow the President nor his associates to distort actual events. An example is the choice to "surge" our troop strength in Iraq.
The President searched and searched for a general who would tell him what he wanted to hear. But there were a number of prominent generals, both active and retired, who thought otherwise. Generals against the "surge" were: Abizaid, Batiste, Casey, Odom, Eaton, Clark, Hoar, McCafferty. The President allowed his slander machine, the right wing press, to label these men 'surrender monkeys'. These generals made valid arguments opposing the 'surge'and they are being proven right according to present events in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So to folks who are unhappy with the performance of their opposition party, I say "get involved". Your local Democratic or Independent Committee needs your help. As one 91 year old activist woman said last night on a Bill Moyers program, "You are the leader that you have been looking for."
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Libby Convicted on 4 Felony Counts and No Prison Time
[Read the article: "It is my judgment"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Libby is a criminal. His former boss, Dick Cheney is a criminal. And the rewarder of criminals, George W. Bush, is a criminal.
Libby, Cheney, and Bush are guilty of conspiring to name an undercover CIA spy, Valerie Plame, simply because she was married to a man, Joe Wilson, who exposed the "uranium from Niger to Iraq" lie. Joe Wilson told the truth. But this Administration can't handle the truth.
We must now impeach both Cheney and Bush. Think of these men as ones who poisoned the city's water suppy. They have earned our utter contempt.
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Keith Speaks For Us!
[Read the article: "Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you, Keith, for speaking truth to those in power.
My neighbor, Sean, a 35 year-old man with a wife and 3 kids, told me today, "These Republicans think that we have an attention span this big (as he held his thumb and fore-finger one inch apart)." He went on, "They think that we forget their crimes by putting on TV the escapades of Paris Hilton".
Are the rest of the media asleep? I hope not. Today is July 4th and I recall the words of Ben Franklin, 'We have given you a good government. Now see if you can keep it.'