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Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith twisted CIA data in order to justify a war against Iraq
...an ad-hoc committee called the Office of Special Plans, set up [by] Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other high-profile hawks rewrote the intelligence information on Iraq that the CIA gathered and gave it to White House officials to help Bush build a case for war, according to three Senators on the intelligence committee.
Tenet: Wolfowitz Did It
The Yellowcake Blame Game
By JASON LEOPOLD
When George Tenet, the director of the CIA, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week about dubious intelligence data on the Iraqi threat that made it into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, he said an ad-hoc committee called the Office of Special Plans, set up [by] Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other high-profile hawks rewrote the intelligence information on Iraq that the CIA gathered and gave it to White House officials to help Bush build a case for war, according to three Senators on the intelligence committee.
Tenet told the Intelligence Committee that his own spies at the CIA determined that much of the intelligence information they collected on Iraq could not prove that the country was an imminent threat nor could they find any concrete evidence that Iraq was stockpiling a cache of chemical and biological weapons. But the Office of Special Plans, using Iraqi defectors from the Iraqi National Congress as their main source, rewrote some of the CIA's intelligence to say, undeniably, that Iraq was hiding some of the world's most lethal weapons. Once the intelligence was rewritten, it was delivered to the office of National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, where it found its way into various public speeches given by Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bush, the Senators said.
Moreover, these Senators allege that the office of the Vice President and the National Security Council were fully aware that the intelligence Wolfowitz's committee collected may not have been reliable. The Senators said they are discussing privately whether to ask Wolfowitz to testify before a Senate hearing in the near future to determine how large of a role his Special Plans committee played in providing the President with intelligence data on Iraq and whether that information was reliable or beefed up to help build a case for war.
A week ago, Tenet claimed responsibilty for allowing the White House to use the now disputed claim that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger to build an atomic bomb in Bush's State of the Union address. Last week, these Senators and a CIA intelligence official said the Office of Special Plans urged the White House to use the uranium claim in Bush's speech.
But Democrats in the Senate are now asking what role the secret committee set up by Wolfowitz played in hyping the intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs.
Secretary of State Colin Powell appears to be the only White House official who questioned the accuracy of the intelligence information coming out of the Office of Special Plans. A day before he was set to appear before the United Nations Feb. 5 to argue about the Iraqi threat and to urge the Council to support military action against the country, Powell omitted numerous claims provided to him by the Office of Special Plans about Iraq's weapons program because the information was unreliable, according to an early February report in U.S. News and World Report.
Powell was so disturbed about the questionable intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction that he put together a team of experts to review the information he was given before his speech to the U.N.
Much of the information Powell's speech was provided by Wolfowitz's Office of Special Plans, the magazine reported, to counter the uncertainty of the CIA's intelligence on Iraq.
Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, the magazine said. At one point, he became so infuriated at the lack of adequate sourcing by the Office of Special Plans to intelligence claims he said, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine.
Spokespeople for Wolfowitz, Rice and the Vice President all denied the accusations, saying it was the CIA who provided the White House with the bulk of intelligence on Iraq and that there is no reason to believe the information isn't accurate. Tenet's spokespeople would not return several calls for comment.
Separately, the CIA, earlier this year, brought back four retired officials, led by former CIA deputy director Richard Kerr, to examine the agency's pre-war intelligence and reporting on the Iraqi threat. Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board is also probing the issue, but whether any of the investigations include the Office of Special Plans is still undecided.
Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter for the New Yorker, wrote an expose on the Office of Special Plans in May. In his story, he claims a Pentagon adviser told him that the committee "was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true_that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States."
Feith, in a rare Pentagon briefing in May, denied that the Office of Special Plans was cherry-picking intelligence information to build a case for war in Iraq.
The Office of Special Plans "was not involved in intelligence collection," Feith said. "Rather, it relied on reporting from the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community. Its job was to review this intelligence to help digest it for me and other policymakers, to help us develop Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism... in the course of its work, this team, in reviewing the intelligence that was provided to us by the CIA and the intelligence community, came up with some interesting observations about the linkages between Iraq and al Qaeda."
To date, however, the Pentagon has failed to provide any proof of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Still, the OSP or "The Cabal," as the group calls itself, according to the New Yorker story, played a significant role in convincing the White House that Iraq was a threat to its neighbors in the Middle East and to the United States. But the intelligence information and the Iraqi defectors the group relied heavily upon to prove its case were widely off the mark. For example, according to one CIA intelligence official in charge of weapons of mass destruction for the agency, the OSP is responsible for providing thee White House with the information that thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were intended for a secret nuclear weapons program.
Bush said last September in a speech that attempts by Iraq to acquire the tubes point to a clandestine program to make enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. But experts contradicted Bush, saying that the evidence is ambiguous at best. It was later determined by the International Atomic Energy Agency that the tubes were designed to was to build rockets rather than for centrifuges to enrich uranium.
Furthermore, the Iraqi defectors feeding the OSP with information about the locations of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction were said to be unreliable and responsible for sending U.S. military forces on a "wild goose chase," according to another CIA intelligence official.
Case in point: In 2001, an Iraqi defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, told the OSP he had visited twenty secret facilities for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Saeed, a civil engineer, supported his claims with stacks of Iraqi government contracts, complete with technical specifications. Saeed said Iraq used companies to purchase equipment with the blessing of the United Nations - and then secretly used the equipment for their weapons programs. He claimed that chemical and biological weapons labs could be found in hospitals and presidential palaces, which turned out to be completely untrue, when the locations were searched.
The OSP provided the National Security Council with Saeed's findings last year and the information found its way into a White House report in December called, "Iraq: A Decade of Deception and Defiance" <http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect3.html>
But the information never held up and turned out to be another big intelligence failure for the Bush administration. Judith Miller first brought the existence of Saeed to light in a New York Times story in December 2001 and again in January. The White House, in September 2002, cited the information provided by Saeed in a fact sheet.
Whether a bipartisan probe into the OSP is convened remain to be seen, but one thing is certain, the committee of pseudo spies wields an enormous amount of power.
Larry C. Johnson, a former counter-terrorism expert at the CIA and the State Department, says he's spoken to his colleagues working for both agencies and its clear that the OSP has politicized the intelligence process.
"What they're experiencing now is the worst political pressure. Anyone who attempted to challenge or rebut OSP was accused of rocking the boat. OSP came in with an agenda that they were predisposed to believe," he said.
Vincent Cannistrano, who worked for the CIA for 27 years, told the National Journal last month that the OSP "incorporated a lot of debatable intelligence, and it was not coordinated with the intelligence community."
Jason Leopold can be reached at: jasonleopold [at] hotmail.com
The Yellowcake Blame Game
By JASON LEOPOLD
When George Tenet, the director of the CIA, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week about dubious intelligence data on the Iraqi threat that made it into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, he said an ad-hoc committee called the Office of Special Plans, set up [by] Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other high-profile hawks rewrote the intelligence information on Iraq that the CIA gathered and gave it to White House officials to help Bush build a case for war, according to three Senators on the intelligence committee.
Tenet told the Intelligence Committee that his own spies at the CIA determined that much of the intelligence information they collected on Iraq could not prove that the country was an imminent threat nor could they find any concrete evidence that Iraq was stockpiling a cache of chemical and biological weapons. But the Office of Special Plans, using Iraqi defectors from the Iraqi National Congress as their main source, rewrote some of the CIA's intelligence to say, undeniably, that Iraq was hiding some of the world's most lethal weapons. Once the intelligence was rewritten, it was delivered to the office of National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, where it found its way into various public speeches given by Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bush, the Senators said.
Moreover, these Senators allege that the office of the Vice President and the National Security Council were fully aware that the intelligence Wolfowitz's committee collected may not have been reliable. The Senators said they are discussing privately whether to ask Wolfowitz to testify before a Senate hearing in the near future to determine how large of a role his Special Plans committee played in providing the President with intelligence data on Iraq and whether that information was reliable or beefed up to help build a case for war.
A week ago, Tenet claimed responsibilty for allowing the White House to use the now disputed claim that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger to build an atomic bomb in Bush's State of the Union address. Last week, these Senators and a CIA intelligence official said the Office of Special Plans urged the White House to use the uranium claim in Bush's speech.
But Democrats in the Senate are now asking what role the secret committee set up by Wolfowitz played in hyping the intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs.
Secretary of State Colin Powell appears to be the only White House official who questioned the accuracy of the intelligence information coming out of the Office of Special Plans. A day before he was set to appear before the United Nations Feb. 5 to argue about the Iraqi threat and to urge the Council to support military action against the country, Powell omitted numerous claims provided to him by the Office of Special Plans about Iraq's weapons program because the information was unreliable, according to an early February report in U.S. News and World Report.
Powell was so disturbed about the questionable intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction that he put together a team of experts to review the information he was given before his speech to the U.N.
Much of the information Powell's speech was provided by Wolfowitz's Office of Special Plans, the magazine reported, to counter the uncertainty of the CIA's intelligence on Iraq.
Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, the magazine said. At one point, he became so infuriated at the lack of adequate sourcing by the Office of Special Plans to intelligence claims he said, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine.
Spokespeople for Wolfowitz, Rice and the Vice President all denied the accusations, saying it was the CIA who provided the White House with the bulk of intelligence on Iraq and that there is no reason to believe the information isn't accurate. Tenet's spokespeople would not return several calls for comment.
Separately, the CIA, earlier this year, brought back four retired officials, led by former CIA deputy director Richard Kerr, to examine the agency's pre-war intelligence and reporting on the Iraqi threat. Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board is also probing the issue, but whether any of the investigations include the Office of Special Plans is still undecided.
Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter for the New Yorker, wrote an expose on the Office of Special Plans in May. In his story, he claims a Pentagon adviser told him that the committee "was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true_that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States."
Feith, in a rare Pentagon briefing in May, denied that the Office of Special Plans was cherry-picking intelligence information to build a case for war in Iraq.
The Office of Special Plans "was not involved in intelligence collection," Feith said. "Rather, it relied on reporting from the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community. Its job was to review this intelligence to help digest it for me and other policymakers, to help us develop Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism... in the course of its work, this team, in reviewing the intelligence that was provided to us by the CIA and the intelligence community, came up with some interesting observations about the linkages between Iraq and al Qaeda."
To date, however, the Pentagon has failed to provide any proof of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Still, the OSP or "The Cabal," as the group calls itself, according to the New Yorker story, played a significant role in convincing the White House that Iraq was a threat to its neighbors in the Middle East and to the United States. But the intelligence information and the Iraqi defectors the group relied heavily upon to prove its case were widely off the mark. For example, according to one CIA intelligence official in charge of weapons of mass destruction for the agency, the OSP is responsible for providing thee White House with the information that thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were intended for a secret nuclear weapons program.
Bush said last September in a speech that attempts by Iraq to acquire the tubes point to a clandestine program to make enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. But experts contradicted Bush, saying that the evidence is ambiguous at best. It was later determined by the International Atomic Energy Agency that the tubes were designed to was to build rockets rather than for centrifuges to enrich uranium.
Furthermore, the Iraqi defectors feeding the OSP with information about the locations of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction were said to be unreliable and responsible for sending U.S. military forces on a "wild goose chase," according to another CIA intelligence official.
Case in point: In 2001, an Iraqi defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, told the OSP he had visited twenty secret facilities for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Saeed, a civil engineer, supported his claims with stacks of Iraqi government contracts, complete with technical specifications. Saeed said Iraq used companies to purchase equipment with the blessing of the United Nations - and then secretly used the equipment for their weapons programs. He claimed that chemical and biological weapons labs could be found in hospitals and presidential palaces, which turned out to be completely untrue, when the locations were searched.
The OSP provided the National Security Council with Saeed's findings last year and the information found its way into a White House report in December called, "Iraq: A Decade of Deception and Defiance" <http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect3.html>
But the information never held up and turned out to be another big intelligence failure for the Bush administration. Judith Miller first brought the existence of Saeed to light in a New York Times story in December 2001 and again in January. The White House, in September 2002, cited the information provided by Saeed in a fact sheet.
Whether a bipartisan probe into the OSP is convened remain to be seen, but one thing is certain, the committee of pseudo spies wields an enormous amount of power.
Larry C. Johnson, a former counter-terrorism expert at the CIA and the State Department, says he's spoken to his colleagues working for both agencies and its clear that the OSP has politicized the intelligence process.
"What they're experiencing now is the worst political pressure. Anyone who attempted to challenge or rebut OSP was accused of rocking the boat. OSP came in with an agenda that they were predisposed to believe," he said.
Vincent Cannistrano, who worked for the CIA for 27 years, told the National Journal last month that the OSP "incorporated a lot of debatable intelligence, and it was not coordinated with the intelligence community."
Jason Leopold can be reached at: jasonleopold [at] hotmail.com
For more information:
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold0719200...
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What is IMC-SF's policy on LaRouchian or otherwise outright Jew bashing? Do they let it roll when the posters have a convincing axe to grind against the Jewish people or is it always this offensive?
For an article that covers the same ground but includes gentiles in the cabal that cooked up intelligence over the WMD (Cheney, Rumsfeld, and suprisingly Newt Gingrich) see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
For an article that covers the same ground but includes gentiles in the cabal that cooked up intelligence over the WMD (Cheney, Rumsfeld, and suprisingly Newt Gingrich) see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
There is no such thing as a "convincing axe to grind against the Jewish people." The Jewish people, like all peoples, are a mixed lot. Some are heroes, some are villains, and most are in between.
That's why one of the comments here was hidden.
There is a convincing ax to grind against *some* Jewish people, but that's a separate issue.
And no, you cannot link to LaRouche sites from here. That's why another comment here was hidden.
In the future, post any comments on our editorial policy here:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1548433.php
Otherwise, they will be hidden.
That's why one of the comments here was hidden.
There is a convincing ax to grind against *some* Jewish people, but that's a separate issue.
And no, you cannot link to LaRouche sites from here. That's why another comment here was hidden.
In the future, post any comments on our editorial policy here:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1548433.php
Otherwise, they will be hidden.
Point taken. The next time I see patently racist rhetoric on this site I will comment on it without mentioning the editorial policy.
write to us at:
imc-sf-editorial [at] lists.indymedia.org
We'll remove it.
If you instead comment on it here, we will assume that you posted the racist comment yourself, and we will remove you.
Criticism of Zionism is not racist. If you say that it is, you're a racist, and we'll remove you. Criticism of Jews as a people is racist. Do it here, we'll remove you.
imc-sf-editorial [at] lists.indymedia.org
We'll remove it.
If you instead comment on it here, we will assume that you posted the racist comment yourself, and we will remove you.
Criticism of Zionism is not racist. If you say that it is, you're a racist, and we'll remove you. Criticism of Jews as a people is racist. Do it here, we'll remove you.
Understood. I agree that criticism of Zionism is not racist.
But I'm not sure if I understand how responding critically to racist comments on this site would make you assume that I had posted the racist comments myself.
But I'm not sure if I understand how responding critically to racist comments on this site would make you assume that I had posted the racist comments myself.
... has nothing whatsoever to do with jewish people or zionism.
it has everything to do with iraq and the lies that got us there and will keep us there for another 10 years.
it has everything to do with iraq and the lies that got us there and will keep us there for another 10 years.
Because it happens a lot around here, as part of an organized campaign to smear us, and to smear all anti-Zionists, as racists, Nazis and anti-Semites.
False flagged propaganda is a very old tactic. See:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1555696_comment.php#1555703
False flagged propaganda is a very old tactic. See:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1555696_comment.php#1555703
USC Title 18, Section 2331, (Patriot Act, a new category) - "domestic terrorism" - has been created and means activities that:
"involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping, and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."
Bush KNOWINGLY lied about Iraq's WMD to intimidate and coerce the public and congress to get his oil war in Iraq. Bush is, by definition of his own Patriot Act, a terrorist.
Mr. Bush, the country awaits your impeachment and free trip to Guantanamo.
"involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping, and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."
Bush KNOWINGLY lied about Iraq's WMD to intimidate and coerce the public and congress to get his oil war in Iraq. Bush is, by definition of his own Patriot Act, a terrorist.
Mr. Bush, the country awaits your impeachment and free trip to Guantanamo.
For more information:
http://www.votetoimpeach.org/
"But I'm not sure if I understand how responding critically to racist comments on this site would make you assume that I had posted the racist comments myself."
That's because you're using logic.
By official Indybay policy, there are exactly two kinds of anti-Israel posts here -- ones posted by pure-hearted saints, and ones posted by Zionists disguising themselves as non-Zionist antisemites. There is simply no imaginable third category -- say, like an overt antisemite overtly trying to spread his antisemitism through overt antisemitic rhetoric, just like they do on every open-posting medium since the Net began. That _never_ happens here, we are told. The doomsday shroud somehow forbids it through a process of higher physics.
That means, if you point out antisemitism on this board, then expect to be accused, officially, of being the antisemite.
Stupid? Yep.
(Mind you, a guy who goes by "A Concerned Zionist" has been posting anti-Zionist posts for months now in a clear case of "roorback," but it's "roorback" in a direction Indybay approves, so "one of the editors" doesn't get all irate about it -- because he knows he can't blame it on Thuh Zionists. But that's different. Somehow.)
@%<
That's because you're using logic.
By official Indybay policy, there are exactly two kinds of anti-Israel posts here -- ones posted by pure-hearted saints, and ones posted by Zionists disguising themselves as non-Zionist antisemites. There is simply no imaginable third category -- say, like an overt antisemite overtly trying to spread his antisemitism through overt antisemitic rhetoric, just like they do on every open-posting medium since the Net began. That _never_ happens here, we are told. The doomsday shroud somehow forbids it through a process of higher physics.
That means, if you point out antisemitism on this board, then expect to be accused, officially, of being the antisemite.
Stupid? Yep.
(Mind you, a guy who goes by "A Concerned Zionist" has been posting anti-Zionist posts for months now in a clear case of "roorback," but it's "roorback" in a direction Indybay approves, so "one of the editors" doesn't get all irate about it -- because he knows he can't blame it on Thuh Zionists. But that's different. Somehow.)
@%<
"That means, if you point out antisemitism on this board, then expect to be accused, officially, of being the antisemite."
Sounds like a leftist version of the popular American belief that pedophiles can never be members of one's own family.
Sounds like a leftist version of the popular American belief that pedophiles can never be members of one's own family.
If you *don't* want to see anti-Semitism on this site, when you see it, you will write to us, you will tell us about it, and we will remove it.
If you *do* want to see anti-Semitism on this site, you will do something else.
There is no third choice.
Ergo, if you do something else, we will assume that you *do* want to see anti-Semitism on this site, and we will remove you.
If you *do* want to see anti-Semitism on this site, you will do something else.
There is no third choice.
Ergo, if you do something else, we will assume that you *do* want to see anti-Semitism on this site, and we will remove you.
Again, it means this: if you don't do exactly what "one of the editors" says, he will use that chop-logic "reasoning" above to fling accusations of antisemitism at you with exactly no evidence other than that you didn't do exactly what he says.
Stupid? Yep. Counterproductive? You betcha. Standard operating procedure? Sadly, yes. There isn't a single person on this board that's done more to fight Holocaust denial here than I have, and "one of the editors" is therefore "100% convinced" that I'm the one posting the Holocaust denial stuff in the first place. In fact, he's called it "the only possible explanation."
Just to let you know the caliber of people you're dealing with.
@%<
Stupid? Yep. Counterproductive? You betcha. Standard operating procedure? Sadly, yes. There isn't a single person on this board that's done more to fight Holocaust denial here than I have, and "one of the editors" is therefore "100% convinced" that I'm the one posting the Holocaust denial stuff in the first place. In fact, he's called it "the only possible explanation."
Just to let you know the caliber of people you're dealing with.
@%<
Gehrig has done nothing to fight Holocaust denial on the site, nothing whatsoever. All he has done is to *talk* about it. Talk is cheap. If he really wanted to fight Holocaust denial, he would email us when he sees it and we would remove it. That would be really fighting the stuff. He never does this, ever, not even once. When pressed as to why he fails to do so, he makes exceedingly lame excuses. Ergo, we can only conclude that he does *not* want Holocaust denial remover from this site. If he did, he would contribute to its removal. He does not. Ergo, his position on the appearance of Holocaust denial, and anti-Semitism in general, is clear. He doesn’t want it removed. He wants it to appear hear. it gives him something to talk about. It is, in fact, the only thing he talks about. If it were removed immediately, as per official SF-IMC policy, would we even hear from Gehrig? it’s doubtful. He’s a one trick pony, if ever one was. That he, himself, provides the props for his sole and only trick is, while not absolutely certain, a very safe assumption. It is certainly consistent with the known behavior of all the world’s other one trick ponies. Why should we assume that he’s any different?
one of the editors: "Gehrig has done nothing to fight Holocaust denial on the site, nothing whatsoever."
Now, very simply, you are lying.
Are you telling me that you would have recognized the true nature of, say, the Adelaide Institute if I hadn't pointed it out? ABBC? The David Irving book Brian mentioned by title but not author? I spotted Brian as a Holocaust denier a good month or so before you banned him. How many times did that Nerdcities list of links show up before I called it out for what it was?
Think it through, whizbang -- if I wanted to discredit Indybay, why would I have pointed those puppies out at all, rather than let them fester in plain view?
But, no -- Mussolini here has a script and by golly he's going to stick to it, and that script says that Holocaust denial on Indybay is really only "roorback" and can't possibly possibly possibly be anything else and ain't nothing no way nohow gonna get him to lift his eyes from that script for a fraction of a second.
And his script says that there's only one possible possible possible way to fight Holocaust denial, and that's the way Mussolini here says you must, and if you don't do it exactly his way then get ready to be accused: YOU MUST BE THE GUY POSTING THE ANTISEMITIC CRAP AND THERE IS NO POSSIBLE OTHER EXPLANATION, NO HUH-UH NO HOW NOPE NOPE NOPE.
Mussolini again: "That he, himself, provides the props for his sole and only trick is, while not absolutely certain, a very safe assumption."
... if you're an idiot. A paranoid one. It's a bit like saying that it's the doctors who plant the cancerous tumors they remove, because, golly, there really does always seem to be a doctor around when a cancerous tumor is removed, doesn't there. It must be biological roorback.
It's time for "one of the editors" to cut the crap and deal with the real issue for once.
The real issue, of course, is that "one of the editors" is in denial about the demonstrable role that antisemitism plays in some parts of the anti-Zionist dialog. It's clear as a bell, but it's a bell he doesn't want to hear. That's why I concentrate on Holocaust denial -- an unmistakeably and unambiguously antisemitic form of rhetoric -- as the litmus test, one that gets failed with distressing regularity. (Note that this is why I let that laRouchie post pass without comment.)
But "one of the editors" simply can't believe that anyone anti-Zionist could _possibly_ get duped by antisemites who use anti-Zionist rhetoric for bait. Although he's seen it several times close up, he still doesn't think it happens. He's in denial.
And I have pointed out example after example of this so many times in Indybay that, in order to maintain that denial, he has to discredit _me_. Which he does by pulling pure bullshit out of his ass, painting it with five "ergo"s, and then insisting insisting insisting that it's gotta be that Gehrig, he's the one planting the evidence, that's it, that's the "only possible explanation."
@%<
Now, very simply, you are lying.
Are you telling me that you would have recognized the true nature of, say, the Adelaide Institute if I hadn't pointed it out? ABBC? The David Irving book Brian mentioned by title but not author? I spotted Brian as a Holocaust denier a good month or so before you banned him. How many times did that Nerdcities list of links show up before I called it out for what it was?
Think it through, whizbang -- if I wanted to discredit Indybay, why would I have pointed those puppies out at all, rather than let them fester in plain view?
But, no -- Mussolini here has a script and by golly he's going to stick to it, and that script says that Holocaust denial on Indybay is really only "roorback" and can't possibly possibly possibly be anything else and ain't nothing no way nohow gonna get him to lift his eyes from that script for a fraction of a second.
And his script says that there's only one possible possible possible way to fight Holocaust denial, and that's the way Mussolini here says you must, and if you don't do it exactly his way then get ready to be accused: YOU MUST BE THE GUY POSTING THE ANTISEMITIC CRAP AND THERE IS NO POSSIBLE OTHER EXPLANATION, NO HUH-UH NO HOW NOPE NOPE NOPE.
Mussolini again: "That he, himself, provides the props for his sole and only trick is, while not absolutely certain, a very safe assumption."
... if you're an idiot. A paranoid one. It's a bit like saying that it's the doctors who plant the cancerous tumors they remove, because, golly, there really does always seem to be a doctor around when a cancerous tumor is removed, doesn't there. It must be biological roorback.
It's time for "one of the editors" to cut the crap and deal with the real issue for once.
The real issue, of course, is that "one of the editors" is in denial about the demonstrable role that antisemitism plays in some parts of the anti-Zionist dialog. It's clear as a bell, but it's a bell he doesn't want to hear. That's why I concentrate on Holocaust denial -- an unmistakeably and unambiguously antisemitic form of rhetoric -- as the litmus test, one that gets failed with distressing regularity. (Note that this is why I let that laRouchie post pass without comment.)
But "one of the editors" simply can't believe that anyone anti-Zionist could _possibly_ get duped by antisemites who use anti-Zionist rhetoric for bait. Although he's seen it several times close up, he still doesn't think it happens. He's in denial.
And I have pointed out example after example of this so many times in Indybay that, in order to maintain that denial, he has to discredit _me_. Which he does by pulling pure bullshit out of his ass, painting it with five "ergo"s, and then insisting insisting insisting that it's gotta be that Gehrig, he's the one planting the evidence, that's it, that's the "only possible explanation."
@%<
>Are you telling me that you would have recognized the true nature of, say, the Adelaide Institute if I hadn't pointed it out?
That's a strawman argument.
I'm telling you, and the world, that pointing out Holocaust denial, and anti-Semitism in general, should be done by email, not on the site. That way it will be removed sooner, rather than later. If you want it removed sooner, rather than later, email us. If you don't email us, we have no choice but to assume that you do *not* want it removed sooner, rather than later.
That's a strawman argument.
I'm telling you, and the world, that pointing out Holocaust denial, and anti-Semitism in general, should be done by email, not on the site. That way it will be removed sooner, rather than later. If you want it removed sooner, rather than later, email us. If you don't email us, we have no choice but to assume that you do *not* want it removed sooner, rather than later.
one of the editors: "That's a strawman argument."
The hell it is. There it was, plain as day in JA's post. If -- as your out-the-ass theory suggests -- my true motive is to discredit Indybay by planting Holocaust denial materials, then, even if you ignore the question of how that URL got into JA's post in the first place (and you have, you _have_ ignored that question quite pointedly, because its implications are so obvious to even you that your denial mechanism will brook no mention of it from your keyboard), then _why_ would I bring it up at _all_, rather than let it just sit there and fester?
Are you now seeing the corner you've painted yourself in? Apparently, because even now you're backing away from the charge that I _want_ the stuff to be there, backpedalling to the charge that I just don't wan't it to go away right away. Which is really just your way of saying, I don't fight it the way you insist I MUST or else face the bullshit you sling about "roorback."
I am a firm believer in the IMC movement, strongly feel the need for a way for the non-corporate voices in this world to be heard, am a regular financial contributor to my local IMC, and am utterly appalled that Indybay's editorial policy is so obviously fucked up by one person's documentable denial over the antisemitism issue that I, someone _fighting_ antisemitism, am offically slandered again and again _by an Indybay editor_.
Are you now seeing the logical lacunae you're clinging to so that you don't have to face the fact that, yes, there are indeed antisemites who use anti-Zionist rhetoric as bait, and that the most virulently anti-Israel posters at Indybay have _taken_ that bait on more than one occasion?
@%<
The hell it is. There it was, plain as day in JA's post. If -- as your out-the-ass theory suggests -- my true motive is to discredit Indybay by planting Holocaust denial materials, then, even if you ignore the question of how that URL got into JA's post in the first place (and you have, you _have_ ignored that question quite pointedly, because its implications are so obvious to even you that your denial mechanism will brook no mention of it from your keyboard), then _why_ would I bring it up at _all_, rather than let it just sit there and fester?
Are you now seeing the corner you've painted yourself in? Apparently, because even now you're backing away from the charge that I _want_ the stuff to be there, backpedalling to the charge that I just don't wan't it to go away right away. Which is really just your way of saying, I don't fight it the way you insist I MUST or else face the bullshit you sling about "roorback."
I am a firm believer in the IMC movement, strongly feel the need for a way for the non-corporate voices in this world to be heard, am a regular financial contributor to my local IMC, and am utterly appalled that Indybay's editorial policy is so obviously fucked up by one person's documentable denial over the antisemitism issue that I, someone _fighting_ antisemitism, am offically slandered again and again _by an Indybay editor_.
Are you now seeing the logical lacunae you're clinging to so that you don't have to face the fact that, yes, there are indeed antisemites who use anti-Zionist rhetoric as bait, and that the most virulently anti-Israel posters at Indybay have _taken_ that bait on more than one occasion?
@%<
It is long overdue, but we must stop this madness. This same madness is what fuels the crazy terrorists. And they justify what they do, byt saying that our government represents our wishes. We must make it known to our fellow humans overseas, that this tyrany is not in our name. We must take responsibility for our government. We must stop them.
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