The Theroxylandr in Flame

Fitzgerald said on his press conference:

But I think what we see here today, when a vice president’s chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.

But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules.

So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with an American appreciation for our values and our dignity.

Indeed.

Let me also point to the article titled “One indictment for a thousand crimes”, which nails down the whole story better than any before. 

This is my response to this post commenting on my previous opinion. Let me get back to those two claims I’ve made:

The nation was involved into war based on forged evidences and 20,000 – 50,000 people died

No, I do not think that WH was involved in forging the Niger evidence (good overview of this story is here).  The fact that Cheney asked to investigate that claims supports that.

But once Wilson got back from Niger and his report reached Cheney strange things happened. Cheney had two good options to react on the Wilson report: “This guy is probably not credible enough check it again, but we will hold off from spreading the story for now� and “Ok, this Niger evidence is a hoax, let drop it�.

Instead, they behaved in a very strange and suspicious way. First, they continued to use the Niger story to promote the war, especially in the Bush State of the Union speech that happened one year (!!) after the report. Is one year enough to read and understand a piece of paper?

Second, they started digging over Wilson identity to find any way to discredit him. As I recall just after the Bush speech Wilson anonymously leaked his story to the press. It took Cheney several months to find out that his wife worked for CIA. At the moment Wilson published this article the WH Iraq team was ready and immediately started the operation to dismiss the credibility of his report. I would say that probably they also tried to dismiss the possibility that his report was known to WH at the moment Bush did a speech. Is it strange or not?

The unknown number of CIA agents, possibly dozens went uncovered because they were related to Valerie Wilson. It is likely that serious damage to nuclear intelligence was done

As explained here her identity was indeed secret. It took Cheney a year to figure it out, and he learned it from the memo prepared by CIA. And so why CIA went ballistic if it was no big deal?

I think you are more partisan than I am

I want to join the concerns of fellow bloggers here, here and here about very dangerous development in Iran.

The first thing I want to see is the peace in the Middle East. The latest developments in Iraq war scandal was giving me the hope that the US aggression in Iraq in order to get control on oil using manufactured evidences will result in a political damage that will prevent the West from doing it again.

After all, we don’t consider possible anymore that Sun or IBM management will hire killers to remove Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer? So then we should not approve Bush killing 20,000 people to get better price for oil. It’s just not a proper way to do business. And I think the public opinion was drifting in that direction.

The only thing Iran had to do is to sit and wait until the next elections will replace US hardliners with moderates who value dignity in politics. But president Ahmaninejad blew it off.

I know Iranians are getting more and more educated, the students from Iran are all over the world, and the Iranian movies are now for rent in Netflix. I’d love to see Iranian bloggers to speak about this. Please, speak in english and post under “Iran” tag: we will hear you!

This blog claims that if the only reason for indictments is perjury and obstruction of justice but not the Agent Protection Act – why not just close the affair and go home? Let me remind the real damage that resulted from the Cheney/Rove/Libby/etc cabal actions:

1. The nation was involved into war based on forged evidences and 20,000 – 50,000 people died
2. The unknown number of CIA agents, possibly dozens went uncovered because they were related to Valerie Wilson. It is likely that serious damage to nuclear intelligence was done

Let me ask you – isn’t that enough of damage to keep digging?

This is my answer to this post claiming that the ‘82 statute protects agents that are covert at the moment the identity leak happens.

This is wrong. The agent establishes connections that are secret for years. Practically it means the identity of a retired agent must be protected for 15-20 years, but the law protects it indefinitely. We don’t know how many agents Rove and Libby have uncovered – it might be 10 or even 20 people, not just Valerie Wilson.

We will never know the exact damage done by outing agent Plame, but if one day terrorists will blow a nuclear device on american soil, don’t forget that Mr. Cheney, Rove and Libby did their part of the job.

Stephen Hadley is a new person to track for development of Plamegate. He might be related to forging the evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium. This story is not new, but new details are coming, mostly hinting the reason of the fury of White House over Wilson investigation. Details are here and here.

There are more facts to follow-up my previous story about turture of detainees. Apparently 21 person died in custody during creative interrogation sessions.

This post indicates that there was sertain Mister X who, besides Rove and Libby, was giving Plame identity.

Just plain guess – he might be Chalabi. More here.

This article mentions Cheney and Tenet as the Plamegate investigation is possibly in the final week. I’m refusing to make any prognosis, but Cheney will some trouble. What’s interesting, Cheney is old enough to participate in Watergate. Now, with his obsession to avoid scandals, he must feel like sitting in the turd. I wonder what Turd Blossom feels?

The discussion started in this and this articles is rather interesting. The point is – how is that happens that more and more of young people consider cool to wear T-shirts with people responsible for millions of deaths?

Before going to discussion I would like to put some facts straight. First, Boris Johnson writes:

Remind me: who was the greater mass murderer, Stalin or Hitler? Well, Stalin is thought to have been responsible for about 50 million deaths, and Hitler for a mere 25 million

Ok, I will remind you. The total death toll of WWII was about 50 million: 30 Russia, 10 China, 6 Germany …. 0.25 USA …. etc. Putting only 50% of that on Hitler is a clearly strange. Second, Stalin killed 50 million in 29 years while Hitler had spent murdering about 6 years. I understand that this doesn’t change the picture, but a little lie here, another lie there and all together it becomes The big lie.

Maybe Johnson is twisting facts because Hitler was not a commie? Another fragment:

[Melita Norwood was] the most important British female spy ever recruited by the KGB. …. File after file she shovelled to her KGB handlers, to the point where she is credited by some with accelerating Russia’s acquisition of nuclear weapons by two years

Ok, she did. And then what happened – did Stalin use the Bomb? Can you remind me who actually did? How do we know that US would not use the bomb again and again? Maybe Melita Norwood actually saved millions of lives? Nobody knows, but the balance of power in 50s-80s made a very prolonged period of peace. It’s actually after soviets fell that the world started to be dangerous again…

Why is that the conservative press is bringing the commies arguments?
First step is to remind how bad they were, second is to point the finger to the political opponents. Aren’t Democrats closer to commies and Republicans defenders of society from them?

But let recall what kind of regime the Stalin dictatorship was. To summarize, the cornerstones are:

• The concentration of economic power in hands of 10-15 super-sized government corporations
• Suppression of all economic activities of people. Only government payroll money are legal
• Suppression of any social activities of people, war on free speech
• Prohibition of privacy of people. Criminalization of abortion and homosexuality
• Domination of leading conservative ideology, which gained a religious status. Alliance of religion and state. Offence against other religions except the allowed one
• Keep people fearing of external enemy. Justify the violation of human rights by the need to protect against this enemy

Just to keep facts straight – if you cover the word Stalin as the author of this program and try to substitute his name first with Clinton, second with Bush – tell me, which one fits better?