Transterrestrial Musings

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The timeline in the article is inconsistent with that given in great detail by Stephen Hayes - http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/217wnmrb.asp?pg=1
- "Wilson's trip to Niger took place in February 2002, some eight months before the U.S. government received the phony Iraq-Niger documents in October 2002."

Posted by Clark at December 3, 2005 04:50 PM

I knew Curveball. Curveball was a friend of mine. And you, sir, are no Curveball!

Posted by Joe Athelli at December 3, 2005 07:06 PM

I saw that Joe Wilson line in the LAT this morning and just gave up. They simply won't bite the bullet and tell the truth, will they?

Posted by dan at December 3, 2005 07:29 PM

To repeat - as noted above - the forged documents were NOT acquired by the CIA until AFTER Bush's SOTU address and AFTER Wilson's Niger escapade.

In other words, the forged documents played no role in Bush's 16 words because they were not yet under the US government's possession.

Moreover, Bush's 16 words referenced British intelligence and Africa. And the Butler Report on the matter says that the British government's intelligence was sound.

By the way, the Brits still stand by their statements.

Wonder why the LA Times reporters didn't mention either the Butler Report or the fact that Blair's Government still believes the intelligence?

Okay, sloppiness. But why does the sloppiness and mix-ups always seem to favor one side?

SMG

Posted by SteveMG at December 3, 2005 07:48 PM

I tend not to read the Times coverage of Iraq. When I pick up my paper every morning, I frequently see their anti-Bush headlines on the Iraq war, then if I read the article, I find that reporters either have misrepresented the facts (as they do in the article you cite above) or relied extensively on unnamed sources.

You nailed it when you said, "the default position [for Times reporters is that the administration lies, and anyone who accuses them of lying must ipso facto be telling the truth."

Good post.

Posted by Dan (AKA GaypatriotWest) at December 4, 2005 12:42 AM

I tend not to read the LA Times coverage of Iraq. When I pick up my paper every morning, I frequently see their anti-Bush headlines on the Iraq war, then if I read the article, I find that reporters either have misrepresented the facts (as they do in the article you cite above) or relied extensively on unnamed sources.

You nailed it when you said, "the default position [for Times reporters is that the administration lies, and anyone who accuses them of lying must ipso facto be telling the truth."

Good post.

Posted by Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest) at December 4, 2005 12:49 AM

Joe Wilson is simply telling the truth: that's the only reason why Neocon Trotskyite gangsters want destroy him

Meanwhile in the reality-based part of the galaxy, MARINES ARE BLEEDING IN BABYLON: Friday, 10 US marines were killed in a bombing near Fallujah...

One might recall that Fallujah used to be a peaceable and sleepy provincial town where Sunnis, Christians, and Shiites lived in harmony…that was long long time ago, before the US Government decided to teach “Ayyrab terrorists” a lesson they would never forget: In November 2004, George W. Bush launched Operation Al-Fajr ("The Dawn" in Arabic), also known as Operation Phantom Fury, a joint U.S.-Iraqi offensive against “rebel strongholds” in the city of Fallujah. The Pentagon called it "some of the heaviest urban combat Marines have been involved in since Hue City in Vietnam in 1968."

While listening to the latest wave of robotic Neocon platitudes churned out by the US military’s PR and Information Management Department, I remembered the words of a famous 19th century American philosopher of Gallic descent who once said of brainwashed pseudo-patriots “Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?...
Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts—a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments...The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense…”

Truly, Thoreau’s prose was prescient in many ways…

Posted by Dr Victorino de la Vega at December 4, 2005 01:47 AM

Dear Dr Victorino Barking Moonbat,

This is the same post you put up at Belgravia Dispatch.

Do you just go around from blog to blog, pasting the same DU/Kos bile points, embellished with your dog-eared Roget's Thesaurus, or do you actually have something to say?

What's your PhD in? Could your post your dissertation?

Posted by C-141 Crew Dog at December 4, 2005 04:35 AM

The LA Times recently laid off 8% of their newsroom staff, or about 85 people. That's because of their declining circulation. Last I looked, it was number one for highest decline, by an enormous margin.

What is also happening is the LA Times is losing advertising bookings. Well, would you want to advertise there?

Posted by Carol at December 4, 2005 04:41 AM

Dr. Victorino has done a lot of trolling this morning. He left the very same post over at The Mechanical Eye.

I say he's tenured on the Left Coast. Notice the time stamp. This was probably his "hot" Saturday night activity.

Posted by Son of a C-141 Vet at December 4, 2005 05:03 AM

Dan, you should not be paying any money to receive the LAT. Why support that which you disagree with? Just read it on the web.

Posted by R Rainey at December 4, 2005 05:29 AM

If you check out Dr. No Victory's website you will find that he holds a chair at an institute located in a fictional city, plus additional reasons not to take him seriously.

Posted by triticale at December 4, 2005 05:45 AM

Gee, if someone's trying to 'destroy' Joe Wilson, they're doing a terrible job of it. Magazine cover stories, book tours, interviews -- all of it despite (or because?) of his dishonesty and opposition to Bush and the war.

Posted by cosmo at December 4, 2005 06:19 AM

Dear Dr Victorino Barking doody-headed L^3 Moonbat:

Thoreau was a screaming hysterical prude. That, of course, when he wasn't dreaming of "making it" with a woodchuck.

Thoreau Prescient? I think not.

Here's Presicence for you: Thank goodness someone will fight the evil in this world as you can continue to cut/paste your savage neolib rhetoric around the web. Put a journalistic condom on it, you boob.

Posted by Dr Victorino's Shrink at December 4, 2005 07:06 AM

Must.
Spawn.
Walden.
Pond.

Posted by Thoreau's Reptilian Side at December 4, 2005 07:09 AM

Most likely his PHD, if he has one, is in 16th century Irish litterature

Posted by Sean at December 4, 2005 07:13 AM

"HE that knows one of their towns knows them all, they are so like
one another, except where the situation makes some difference. I
shall therefore describe one of them; and none is so proper as
Amaurot; for as none is more eminent, all the rest yielding in
precedence to this, because it is the seat of their Supreme
Council..."

Posted by Ali Burton at December 4, 2005 07:29 AM

"Joe Wilson is simply telling the truth: that's the only reason why Neocon Trotskyite gangsters want destroy to him"

Based on your definition of someone who disagrees with you, see above, Doctor, I must include myself in your list of NTGs. Fine, call me wha you wish.. As my mother used to say " Sticks and stones will break your bones....." You know the rest.

Would you mind informing us logically and rationally, how you come to your conclusion regarding the truth? As others have pointed out, Seve Hayes has writtent extensively regarding this issue and to date I've seen NO evidence from anyone that indicates his timelines and conclusions are in error. Please enlighten us, if you are able to.

Otherwise, post somewhere else. We have no time for delusions.

Regards,
Neo

Posted by Neo at December 4, 2005 10:54 AM

One might recall that Fallujah used to be a peaceable and sleepy provincial town where Sunnis, Christians, and Shiites lived in harmony…

I suppose that depends on your definition of "peaceable", and your willingness to choose a less apt definition to dillute our mission in Iraq and its moral underpinnings.

"Dr" la Vega: "Be harmonious or I shall shoot you and throw you into a mass grave."

Posted by Dave S at December 4, 2005 01:10 PM

Well, apart from the renegade “Sunni triangle” and the Kurdish Northeast, most of the country in now “fully liberated”, firmly under Persian terrorist influence: in many neighborhoods, from Baghdad’s eastern suburbs to downtown Basra, bearded Iranian agents roam freely in broad daylight while US and British soldiers don’t dare enter...

As for left-wing human rights activists and other wailing anti-war collaborators who recently condemned the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons by US and British forces in Iraq, well they’re just a bunch of ignorant liberals without any notion of modern nutrition and medicine: WHITE PHOSPHORUS (W.P. in Pentagon parlance) is actually good for brain and nerve formation in children.

Actually, unlike cynical French and Soviet arms merchants who fed you “YELLOW cake” from the BLACK continent (yuck, disgusting!), your “compassionately conservative” liberators have decided to contribute to the edification of a new generation of healthy cum freedom-loving Sunni Ayyrabz : and we even gave your kids premium quality WHITE produce !

Long live freedom!

Long live el Presidente Bush!

Long live Shariaa-based Islamic Law and the institutionalized persecution of second-class citizen such as women, Sunnis and Christians in “Grand” Ayatollah Sistani’s “free Iraq” for which we’ve spent a mere $800 billion in taxpayers money and the life of 2,200+ American kids!

Dr Victorino de la Vega
Chair of the Thomas More Center for Middle East Studies
http://www.mideastmemo.blogspot.com/

Posted by Dr Victorino de la Vega at December 4, 2005 02:45 PM

Calling Dr. Moe, Dr. Larry, Dr. Victorino.

You're wanted in surgery. Stat.

Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Posted by EricH at December 4, 2005 03:21 PM

What Dr. Vega wants is a Maxium Leader to tell him what to do, think, behave. Most Liberals yearn for slavery, as long as they can hold the whip hand on someone else even lower.

Notice btw the word "Trotskyite" and "Neocon" ... tip off that the loon is a Stalinist ANSWER flunky who hates Jews.

Posted by Jim Rockford at December 4, 2005 04:13 PM

I thought Dr. (?!) De la Vega's post was a spoof. A put-on. A farce. Maybe it was, I don't know.

I thought that the Vega was a good car. Underpowered, yes. But basically a good car.

Posted by Lothar at December 4, 2005 04:33 PM

DUELFER REPORT
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap4.html

ISG has not found evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991 or renewed indigenous production of such material-activities that we believe would have constituted an Iraqi effort to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.

So far, ISG has found only one offer of uranium to Baghdad since 1991-an approach Iraq appears to have turned down.

Posted by Steve J. at December 4, 2005 05:53 PM

Joe Wilson is simply telling the truth: that's the only reason why Neocon Trotskyite gangsters want destroy him

What is the truth here?
You're aware he told the CIA Iraq sought uranium from Niger in 1998, right?

Considering what you deem the "truth" has been refuted by:
Wilson himself
Every Democratic Senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee
The Lord Butler Report

It's difficult to understand why you're typing such nonsense.

Which by the way, as if it's even possible, the rest of your post is actually worse on the facts.

Posted by The Ace at December 4, 2005 06:54 PM

"We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessment at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the government's dossier and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union address of 28 January 2003 that:

'The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'

was well-founded."

The Butler Report
Section 499
http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/

Posted by SteveMG at December 5, 2005 09:14 AM

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