New FBI Intelligence Service

[John Simkin]

I think we do have the terrorists "on the run" and several plots have indeed been disrupted in the past four years.  In addition, we have been attempting to disrupt their financing and their communications.  But that does not mean we are safe yet, by any means.

I can tell you, though, that I sleep better when there is a Republican president in office!

The vast majority of the world’s population were horrified by the events of 9/11. This includes people on the left and right. I am sure the same is true of Democrats as well as Republicans. The issue was not about being pro or anti terrorism. It was about developing sensible policies to make sure it did not happen again. That included taking a close look at how it was possible in the first place.

Bush’s policies against terrorism have been disastrous. The most important of these was his decision to lie about what was going on in Iraq. This included the myth that Iraq had WMD and was involved in training terrorists and that it was in someway responsible for 9/11. It did not end there, he used these lies to justify invading Iraq.

At the time, sensible people claimed this would increase the chances of terrorist attacks on the US (either home or abroad). Bush was also told this by the CIA (Blair was told the same thing by his intelligence services). They pointed out that any war in Iraq would create more terrorists who wanted to hurt Americans. That is what is happening in Iraq. Bush has created a problem that he cannot solve. Americans will spend billions over the next few years in Iraq. At the end of it they will have lost thousands of soldiers and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraq citizens. What is more, the real reason for invasion, an attempt to reduce the price of oil, will have ended in failure. As soon as the US leaves Iraq will have a civil war and at the end of that you will have a Muslim fundamentalist government opposed to the interests of the US.

The main problem with Bush is not that he holds extreme right-wing views. Other presidents like his father have been guilty of that. The real problem is that Bush is incompetent. As America is currently the dominant nation in the world, it scares the living daylights out of those who know anything at all about politics.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

This included the myth that Iraq had WMD

John surely you admit that Iraq had HAD WMD and had even used them. I think the sentence may be misleading. The issue is whether Hussein got rid of all of them, is it not?

We could not take the chance that a megalomaniac madman like Hussein had WMD. (He reminded me of one of the villains in a James Bond movie with some crazy scheme to take over the world.)

Bush acted on the intelligence information available to him. Clinton, who saw the same material, produced by an agency whose director he had appointed, also thought Iraq had WMD. It is sophistry to claim Bush was intentionally dishonest re the weapons.

Moreover, the fact that none have been found yet does not mean they are all gone. Look at the missing Alabama girl last seen in the tiny island of Aruba. The police have been looking for her body for what--thirty days--and have not yet found it. Do you suppose she was never in Aruba?

Edited June 30, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Dolva]

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Edited May 14, 2007 by John Dolva

[Tim Gratz]

I once read an amusing story that Fidel was perhaps a "super-mole".

So JFK deliberately botched the BOP.

Got Nikita's attentions off of Europe, anyway.

Didn't believe it, of course, but it was interesting.

Edited June 30, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Ron Ecker]

The main problem with Bush is not that he holds extreme right-wing views. Other presidents like his father have been guilty of that. The real problem is that Bush is incompetent. As America is currently the dominant nation in the world, it scares the living daylights out of those who know anything at all about politics.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

John,

I can allay your fear somewhat in this respect. Bush's incompetence is not the problem. Yes, Bush is incompetent, but he's not in charge. Cheney, who is a brilliant man, is the de facto president, and he represents the PNAC that is running the government.

Bush, like most Americans, had probably never heard of PNAC before he became president in 2000. If his brother Jeb (a founding PNAC member) ever mentioned it, Dubya probably asked him if that was something like the Rat Pack. But what occurred in 2000 was a PNAC coup d'etat, a coup that began when Cheney appointed himself as Bush's running mate. One of Cheney's best friends has admiringly called it one of the most Machiavellian things he has ever seen.

While I agree that "Bush’s policies against terrorism have been disastrous," these policies actually represent the PNAC agenda, which is "expanding the zones of democratic peace" through the "transformation of warfare" (speeded along by "a new Pearl Harbor"), that is, military imperialism pure and simple. And it has been the opposite of a disaster for the war profiteers. They're making a killing as they always do in war. The billions being spent on Iraq are not going to Iraqis or down some black hole, they're going to the MIC.

The PNAC has taken the U.S. into perpetual war, which will last at least until the sheeple start really bleating and say enough, as they did in Vietnam. The problem is that the enemy, which we have enlarged, is not confined to one country where we can negotiate a "peace" and pull out (leaving MIAs and POWs behind). Ordinarily a war would conclude and the war profiteers would then bide their time until they could make a killing again somewhere else, with some new new Pearl Harbor. But this time it looks different. America has an enemy now that should last it forever.

Ron

Edited June 30, 2005 by Ron Ecker

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

The main problem with Bush is not that he holds extreme right-wing views. Other presidents like his father have been guilty of that

John, you are the first person I have ever heard (read) characterize Geoge I as an extreme right-winger! Right-wingers thought he was closer to Norman Thomas than to Ronald Reagan!

[Ron Ecker]

George I may not have been a right-winger, but he was the right-wingers' man. George himself always had a problem with "the vision thing," so he just followed orders.

Ron

[Greg Wagner]

Greg wrote:

"The George Bush Center For Being A Jackass With A Nearly Illiterate Son Who Will One Day Be President And An Even Bigger Jackass" must have been too wordy.

Takes one to know one, Greg.  In my opinion these crude commnents merely reflect badly on your intelligence.  Any kid can call names.  Grow up!

Besides I thought it was common knowledge that the donkey was the party of the Dems.

Query:  have there been ANY terrorist attacks on US soil since Pres Bush got Homeland Security going?

The problem with many of you is you just don't get it.  Which is why your candidates routinely lost.

I read an interesting article in "The New Yorker" where Dem Sen Biden was talking about why Kerry lost.  He had advised Kerry that ALL Kerry should talk about was security.  Kerry rejected Biden's counsel. 

After 9/11/2001, the primary concern of most Americans is the physical safety of their families.  Biden (and Sen Clinton, by the way) gets it.  You don't.

The US will normally support a candidate who is for the strongest defense, particularly in a time of crisis.  JFK knew that, so he campaigned on a non-existent "missile gap" and his demonstration of interest in the security of the country is one of the reasons why he (narrowly) won the 1960 election.

You may or may not like it, but that is the way it is!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tim-

Wow. Apparently I struck a nerve. As you've clearly demonstrated time and time and time again, if there's anyone who doesn't "get it"- IT'S YOU

[Tim Gratz]

Sorry, my friend, I am with the majority of Americans who "get it"!

You are in the minority and always will be (but I have hope for you--as you learn from reading and from life experiences you will switch your allegiance!).

[Greg Wagner]

Sorry, my friend, I am with the majority of Americans who "get it"!

You are in the minority and always will be (but I have hope for you--as you learn from reading and from life experiences you will switch your allegiance!).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tim, you are indeed a funny guy.

[Mark Knight]

Moreover, the fact that none have been found yet does not mean they are all gone.

Tim's quote above regarding WMD's in Iraq is hilarious...in the context of his total reversal of this type of logic in investigating C. Douglas Dillon.

Let me see if I've got it straight: we can accuse Saddam of having WMD's even if no evidence has been found in 27 months of warfare and occupation of Iraq, yet we cannot accuse Dillon of complicity in the assassination because no evidence has been found that Dillon had motive.

I, of course, don't accuse Dillon, as I've mentioned on numerous previous posts. But I merely point out the inconsistency of Tim's argument, as I play "devil's advocate" here.

So Saddam previously had WMD's; was Dillon not also previously a part of the opposition part's administration?

Consistency, Tim...your arguments lack that.

And based upon past experience, the use of "FBI" and "intelligence" in the same sentence appears to be an oxymoron [especially so in the pre-9/11 days].

[Shanet Clark]

Let me elucidate.

Clarence Douglas Dillon had a similar background to Prescott Bush and Allen Dulles. International banking with plenty of contact with German corporate interests, intelligence and highest level financial privateering, war profiteering.

I introduced him as a possible conspirator based on his STRUCTURAL location in the chain of command, and because of the outlandish failures of his employees in the Secret Service.

I have named THOMAS KARAMESSINES, MARSHALL CARTER, MAXWELL TAYLOR and RICHARD HELMS for similar reasons.

The executive sanction model, based on incapacity or loss of clearance, is a common sense approach and should be viewed as a synthesis of reasonable difficulties with the AUTOPSY, WARREN REPORT, HSCA 1978 REPORT, etc.

The theory that Castro and the KGB murdered Kennedy is based on the statements of ALEXANDER HAIG, RICHARD HELMS and JAMES JESUS ANGLETON.

Tim Gratz theory is not credible by any stretch of the imagination.

It is not coherent, coherent or compelling. It is false and in fact, disinformation.

While I believe John Simkins, Larry Hancock and James Richards have identified the TACTICAL agents responsible for the assassination, I have reason to believe my theory of EXECUTIVE SANCTION is the STRATEGIC and closely held source of the tactical ambush.

When Barr McClellan gained notoriety for his theory implicating Lyndon Johnson, I decided (at great personal risk) to disclose my conclusions concerning the intelligence findings, incapacity findings and removal of JFK by Cabinet Level executives within the government.

Tim Gratz presence on the FORUM is disruptive and comically inept.

His point of view is typical of the Neoconservative and right wing mindless authoritarians who are now in power in Washington.

Tim Gratz failure to engage critical thinking or use rational approaches is obvious.

He is in fact a simple foil, and a straw man.

He is like the simpleton who writes angry patriotic letters to the local paper.

Those of us who have broken through our indoctrination and socialization to question authority see Tim Gratz's material for what it is:

Right wing propaganda which shows a laughable lack of critical thinking.

It is obvious that this individual is out-numbered and pathetically incompetent in pushing his outlandish and unsatisfactory hypothesis.

I saw G. Gordon Liddy give a speech once, and he defended the burglary of the Democratic Headquarters because the McGovern people were "Communists"

Gratz is fatuous and intellectually impotent, and his disinformation campaign should be heartily ignored as the work of an amusing reactionary...........

Edited July 1, 2005 by Shanet Clark

[Stan Wilbourne]

Gratz is fatuous and intellectually impotent

To say Gratz is fatuous and intellectually impotent is like saying the Elephant Man was a little puffy under the eyes.

Lecturing Greg (and all else)? Amusing, or not so, depending on how you look at it.

[Shanet Clark]

Gratz is fatuous and intellectually impotent

To say Gratz is fatuous and intellectually impotent is like saying the Elephant Man was a little puffy under the eyes.

Lecturing Greg (and all else)? Amusing, or not so, depending on how you look at it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, I was taking it easy on him.

You should hear what I really think............

Edited July 1, 2005 by Shanet Clark

[Tim Gratz]

Greg wrote:

[Quoting me] You are in the minority and always will be (but I have hope for you--as you learn from reading and from life experiences you will switch your allegiance!).

To which Greg responded:

Tim, you are indeed a funny guy.

Now I meant it as a compliment that I thought Greg, as an obviously intelligent guy, had a capacity to learn and change. Unfortunately, he thinks that is funny!