Plamegate and Iraqgate get the shaft: nomenclature of scandals
 

Cellar folk:

Well once again a terrible tragedy will be mishandled, swept under the carpet, and obscure the truth on a couple of investigations that are at the heart of our current deployment in Iraq and the general malise of this country. Although seemingly unrelated to most, Katrina and the Iraq war and directly related through Bush and his policies by more than just one factor.

Yesterday the Senate judiciary and the Armed Services committee blocked calls for the release of documents and investigations. In reference to the Plamegate ordeal, which in essence is directly related to Iraqgate contraversy inculding the Downing street memos, US attorney Fitzgerald has asked the Congress not to dig for any documents in the Deparment of State or the NSA on Valerie Plame due to the conflict that may arrise from the pending investigation. Although this appears to be a legtimate request from Fitzgerald, the vote on whether to ask for the release of Iraq related documents by certain Republicans is troubling. Citing "national security" intrests these requests have been denied by members of Congress themselves. Seeing the destruction of Katrina and the lack of mobilzation, with most of our reserve forces currently deployed abroad doesn't America demand answers from this administration finally? When will the time come for a house cleaning? With the ommissions and censorship that the 9/11 hearings brought, and now the supression of why we went to Iraq, when will we know? My guess is never. It's as simple as that, by the time there is any true reconsideration or reform (if there ever will be again in this country) the evidence will be "routinely destroyed" as part of a "document managment" program. Is no one responsible? It seems that every elected representative of this country is an asset of the defense establishment or a scared puppy. I guess Congress will get its due when the Capitol becomes a target of a another "terrorist" attack, blindly following the directives of this country's defense infrastructure, one which had been warned about by Churchill, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and even Dick Nixon. God help us.......(developing)

"...the suppression of why we went into Iraq"?

Sigh. The Left will never confess that it's always right, and a good and joyful thing, to take down tyrants, dictators, the undemocratic and antirepublican. Removing the totalitarian regime from any abilty to continue its oppressions of a people quite heartily sick of them will be the greatest, most marvelous thing we do in Iraq.

The Left's fondness for totalitarianism of any stripe has long been noted by the Center and the Right, who regard the Left as utterly stupid and perniciously crazed for that reason. Either is a reason to reject leftism utterly.

That the tyrants resist this with all the vigor at their command is simply to be expected; people will fight like mad dogs for power, especially if they see it slipping their grasp. We must take comfort in the understanding that a democracy is better than a dictatorship. Heck, raw red war is better than oppression under tyranny. It may sometimes be less comfortable to be sure, but in raw red war there lies the hope that something better than the tyranny it is being fought against will emerge. History does show this as a good possiblity.

The sooner the better.

By that I am sure you mean the suicide-bombers, who paste themselves and ruin reasonably good automobiles in aid of reestablishing the tyranny we took out. That is the great truth in your remark.

We are not the oppressors and never have been. They who fight and kill against Iraqi democracy, and us who have made Iraqi democracy a possibility, are naturally the oppressors and just as naturally, illegitimate from any moral point of view.

Yup, and then Step 2 is "We Die". UG, if only we DID do all those great things you say, but instead we simply manage to create a power vacuum. And then we eventually say "Ooops!" and back out of the room and close the door. The same thing happened in Bosnia-Serbia when the dictator Tito died in the natural course of life, there was no mean SOB to keep them all from killing each other anymore. There are SOME occasions where it just might be prudent to restrain our noble democratization impulses until there are more indications that we understand both the problem, and the solution.

Bush got re-election (although who knows how honestly) in 2004. If he was taken down now a new President (not Cheney either, he's tainted by the same mess) would have to be installed. Such uncertainty would not serve anybody with wealth in this country well. My guess is anything that things will heat up near the 2008 election and any real shit will be revealed after Bush is out of office. Just like Clinton and the Lewinsky stuff IIRC.

A question for some older* Plasticians: When did Reagan's troubles start appearing? Iran-Contra and Oliver North was 1987-1988 wasn't it? How close was it to the end of his term and was there other stuff that could have been troublesome before that which the press / democrats didn't seem to grab on?

*I was alive at the time, just too young to care about politicks

There is always "stuff" of some variety in any administration - and this stuff is always harped on like a constant drumbeat. The key to it all is whether that stuff takes hold in the public's consciousness, if they feel it's important. Sometimes the drumbeat even works the opposite of what's intended. Here's the historical data on Presidential popularity:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php

They beat on Reagan at the end of his term and some of it "took", but his popularity numbers never went as low as Bush's are today.

They beat on Clinton near the end of his term and not only did it not "take", it actually had the opposite result and his popularity increased.

But don't forget, one of his first acts as president - I don't think he delayed even a month - was to prevent the release of his father's presidential papers and records, INDEFINITELY. The previous law was that after 25 years most stuff would become public or go to the presidential library the ex-president was building. It's rather obvious that both Dad and Jr. didn't want things coming to light. Coincidentally, Jr.'s actions also protect the Clinton files as well, but Bill doesn't seem to think he has anything to hide. So don't count on the Bush popularity tanking after he leaves office, if they keep electing Repulicans we can forget about getting our hands on any of the evidence.

Tonchi, we have done it. Can't you see that the only thing the opposition has left is murdering people?

That might be enough to stop you, but it doesn't stop either me or the Iraqis. The murderers can't see they aren't persuading anyone as to the legitimacy of their cause. They're only going to get their asses kicked so hard they can use their butts for earmuffs.

We have this f'd up system in the US where we cast votes, and the winner gets to set up house for 4 years.

But I can see how that kind of system would be comfusaling.

If you think that's how it works, then you're comfuseled.

So in order to "persuade" somebody that you have a bigger stick than he has, what is your acceptable military and collateral damage to prove your point? It's OK to wipe 20,000 civilians and 2,000 young Americans off the books to create a power vacuum where militants from other countries can operate freely without a tenth of the casualties that you are taking? Don't you realize that dead is dead no matter whether the person who took you there has an ideology or not? Or even a recognizable religious reason for hating so much that it does not matter WHO he kills because he gets points for it anyway?

We are CONSTANTLY sticking our noses into places like that, setting ourselves up against people who do not think, reason, fight, or worship in a form we recognize. We do not have a clue what to do once we get there. We love our new technology of war, we are real good at blowing things all to hell in record time but if we can't then immediately pack up and go home for the parades and a medal we are in deep shit. The video game was supposed to be over, "we win", but what to do about these pesky people all over the place who are stuck with the radioactive shells and total destruction of their government, social fabric, and infrastructure? Not to mention the fact that somebody forgot to check whether they WANT a cookie-cutter version of American democracy so we are forced to "occupy" the place to inforce our "suggested procedures".

You think this business in Iraq was PLANNED? Darn right it was. The FIRST part. It has been well documented that Bush and Cheney were planning to go into Iraq before the election of 2000 was even over. Saddam dissed his daddy, and Jr. was going to teach him a lesson. By seizing the oil fields, Cheney intended to pay for the whole game. Simple. Easy. Quick. I don't have to discuss whether we knew what to do when we got to Iraq, because we have 2 years worth of "surprising revelations" in any media you want to examine, which show plainly that we got almost everything wrong. We DON'T have the oil fields. We DON'T have any world support. And we DON'T have a ready, willing, and able government in place. We don't even have anybody to leave in charge, since the only Bush crony waiting in the wings to be set up as the new leader turned out to be an embezzler and passer of false intelligence who has no credibility in ANY group now. We don't even have a reason anymore to give why this HAD to be done except that Saddam was a really bad person who needed to be removed, killed a lot of his own people and all that. Well duh, so did the psycho running North Korea, how about 3 of the African dictators, or Mr. Putin in Russia who has rolled back or eliminated all of the democratic reforms which the country was trying to implement? I saw the figure of 10,000 Iraqis who Saddam supposedly did away with since Desert Storm. How many Iraqis did WE kill? And Saddam did not kill 2,000 Americans, that pretty much happened without his supervision. We didn't plan that part either, just tried to keep the photos out of the papers.

I saw in another post that you are one of those who is rationalizing all this by calling it part of the War On Terror. We didn't get that right either. Iraq was NOT dealing with Osama, they were NOT supporting terrorist training camps, they did NOT have the WMDs (at least at the time of end-game). The only Terrorism Saddam was conducting was against his own people and the Kurds, but hoo boy, the terrorist training camps are running full bore now that the USA "won". I know you will not accept that Iraq was not an immediate threat to America or the West, you will follow the official position that it is sufficient that a ruler is a really evil person and we have the right to go in to remove him. We don't. We didn't have the right to attack the sovereign country of Panama and seize their leader either.

Just one more thing I need to clear up with you: I am not some degenerate liberal hippie type who protests any lawful and rightful military action. I detested Jane Fonda and I am not against War across the board. I was born on an Army base, both my parents were Army officers, and I don't lie cheat or steal or tolerate anybody who does. The problem I have is with stupid stupid people who have their own agenda taking the cream of our country into places where we have no business being so that they can get wiped off the face of history for NOTHING. And I believe Iraq will go down as the biggest Nothing in our history.

C'mon, Tonchi. The shells aren't radioactive, it's the projectiles.





But the rest on your post is spot on. ;)

The tips, the butts, the paint, whatever. It kills them, it has put American soldiers in the hospital too. Gonna be a worse scandal than Agent Orange ever was. Unfortunately, like with Agent Orange, the government will brush this off for 25 years until most of the original sick ones croak.

Sorry, but depleted uranium is harmless.

F*ckin' A, Tonchi.

Just being loud, obnoxious, and (most tiring of all) persistent, doesn't change wrong to right. Changing the history books doesn't make it right. Suppressing contrary views doesn't make it right.

This Great Country is big enough to hold misguided souls like UG and the rest of his dittoheads, but they are disproportionally represented due to the volume of their chicken little ravings and the real effect of their fearmongering.

The ghastly, criminal mismanagement of practically everything this administration has its fingerprints on is appalling. If GWB were such a humanitarian, why doesn't he START AT HOME? There are numerous opportunities for him to display his noblesse oblige in our own country. But no. And why not? Why is he so galactically hypocritical? Because it is less profitable. Because it is more visible, especially the mistakes. Because it doesn't jive with the agenda of those to whom he is beholden--big busine$$ and the religious fundamentalists who bury their heads in the sands of the past and righteously demand that everyone else do likewise.

He spends our blood and treasure so freely because it cost him little to accumulate it and therefore has proportionally little appreciation for how hard it is to come by. The deaths of the men and women--tragic almost beyond words for those whose loved ones are now gone--doesn't register with him. I find his political speechreading to the contrary unconvincing. His boggling explosion of our debt, his unconsionable acceleration of the imbalance of wealth and sacrifice in our nation is a wound so deep, the scar will be borne for generations.

I started to write that I hate GWB. I don't though. I don't believe he's evil, but I am certain he's in well over his head. The things he knows how to do, don't apply to the problems at hand. He knows loyalty, a good trait. But loyalty without accountability is cronyism. He knows determination, a good trait. But determination without vision is bullheadedness. He knows pride, a good trait. But pride without humility is hubris.

I am enormously saddened and infuriated that his incompetence in his leadership role is leading us rapidly downward in national economics, social progress, and world standing. It is a damn shame he has what it takes to get us into this mess, sadly, he doesn't have what it takes to get us out again.

:thumbsup:

Well put.

As long as it remains in a solid mass- ie an unfired shell. Depleted uranium is not completely non-radioactive. There remains impurities - radioactive uranium - within depleted uranium. Therefore military personal are advised to remain clear and avoid unnecessary contact with burning enemy amour from a depleted uranimum strike. Not that we know it is dangerous - just like lead paint, asbestos, berrylium copper, radium watches, and leaded gasoline. Those too were harmless.

It's not whether it's radioactive but how radioactive and what kind. DU radioactivity is low-level alpha particles. They can be stopped by a sheet of paper - or a layer of skin. They are much MUCH less dangerous than gamma radiation put out by, say, a nuke blast.

Toxicity of DU is more of a concern than its radioactivity. Like lead paint, DU is toxic. Thus, do not eat it. Otherwise you should be fine. But if you do, its toxic effect on your kidneys will be more harmful than the radiation from it.

No human cancer deaths are connected to DU.

Isn't that what they say about Plutonium, that in addition to radioactivity it is also toxic?

Also, you do not have to 'eat lead' to get lead poisoning, so I would assume you can get DU poisoning through the environment. Like with a lot of environmental issues, the military probably will not act until any evidence is overwhelming.

Oh? The National Gulf War Veteran's Resource Center might be willing to give you a debate on that one. :eyebrow:

Exactly, and if it remains in vaporized form mixed into the soils where it exploded, where crops are grown and wells are dug, where sheep and goats graze and children play, it is going to be tragic in its consequences. Vanity Fair did an expose on it, explained the science, the measurement of radiation, the military applications, and the time bomb ticking away in our VA system. Many people now believe that exposure to depleted uranium is the actual cause of the frustrating and unexplainable Gulf War Syndrome which has disabled or killed our men, but there is still no diagnosis which can prove or disprove this. Still, the only authority who is claiming that depleted uranium used in armor-piercing shells is harmless is the military machine which is sending people out to handle it. In the Vanity Fair article, one of the sources interviewed admitted that they would RATHER NOT use depleted uranium to make these munitions, but the fact was that the government made the conscious decision to do it anyway because there is nothing else known which gives us such an edge against other armies. So that's what it has come down to: the US military commanders value the efficiency of the armor-piercing shells over whatever collateral damage might occur, even if it means the deaths of our own men.

If this is the after-effect of some tank battles, ask yourself what the "bunker buster" bombs could produce for anybody downwind of that massive explosion.

Wow, you make it sound so scary! But it isn't.

The scare is enough to carry the story, though.

Hey, Tonchi! As long as its the ragheads' gardens, who cares? As for the time bomb in the VA system? You must be kidding me! Long before that time bomb ever explodes, the DOD will have writen a manual at least 5 inches thick, explaining why only two Gulf/Iraq War vets in the entire nation are actualy eligible for any medical treatment or other help due to depleted uranium exposure. These two individuals will be killed in a couple of apparently unrelated drive by shootings as they stand on street corners with their "Homeless Vet! Please Help!" signs.

Of course depleted uranium is harmless! And FEMA did a great job in New Orleans - broken levees just weren't their department. And there REALLY were WMD's in Iraq. And any and all documents that might call for an individual member of the government or even any governmental agency to be accountable to ANYBODY for ANYTHING will immediently be shredded in service of the war on terror.

Don't look at me, I'm Swiss! ;)

Not for people nowhere near it, at least.

'Cause it's really bad karma, that's why :(

Yeah, your gummint knows what's best for you and they say everything's copasetic until years after it's too late to help anybody. Agent Orange wasn't even in the VA dictionary until a few years ago, and we can fully expect the same handling with our Gulf War(s) vets.

The government has also been mysteriously silent about pine tar. It's all around us - the children are even seen using it. And yet - nothing. Even the military remains silent - what are they covering up?

Fucking George Brett and his damned pine tar...

Nothing. You ever try to get pine tar off a white shirt? Forget it! :headshake

Hey, I come from the Tar Heel State, ya'll know ;) We had to find all kinds of uses for the stuff. Did you know that not only was it used for caulking boats, they used to put it in open wounds? Of course, in the 1600's a lot of things seemed like a good idea at the time. Like arsenic in cosmetic face powder. Like using an infusion of tobacco for fevers. Mercury to cure syphilis. Gee whiz, we sure were ignorant once upon a time. Not like today, when we have all kinds of agencies to tell us what's good for us, and SAFE too.