President Bush is going to start!!

[Stephanie]

making the democrats eat their hateful words. About time...

New Saddam Documents Detail Terror Training

The Bush administration is preparing to release never-before-seen documents captured when U.S. forces liberated Baghdad that chronicle the extensive training of thousands of radical Islamic terrorists by Saddam Hussein's regime.

"The secret training took place primarily at three camps in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak," reports the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who adds that the operations began two years before the 9/11 attacks and were "directed by elite Iraqi military units."

The existence of these documents, and the nature of what they describe, has been confirmed to the Standard by eleven U.S. government officials, Hayes says.

If true, the documents represent a bombshell finding that shatters the claims of Iraq war critics who have maintained for three years that Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to Islamic terrorism.

More intriguing still is the documentation on Salman Pak - a camp previously described by Iraqi defectors as the location of airline hijacking dress rehearsals that bear a striking resemblance to what took place on 9/11.
Hayes reports that the materials currently being reviewed for release include photographs, handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes and videotapes - plus information recovered from compact discs, floppy discs and computer hard drives.

Taken together, the material chronicles a massive operation that trained 2,000 terrorists to attack Western interests each year from 1999 to 2002.

The volume of material examined so far represents the tip of the iceberg. Of the 2 million items recovered from Saddam's regime, just 50,000 have been thoroughly translated and analyzed.

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of this information," the Standard says.
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/6/231235.shtml
There's also another big article about this at the standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

 

[Nightwish]

making the democrats eat their hateful words. About time...

New Saddam Documents Detail Terror Training

The Bush administration is preparing to release never-before-seen documents captured when U.S. forces liberated Baghdad that chronicle the extensive training of thousands of radical Islamic terrorists by Saddam Hussein's regime.

"The secret training took place primarily at three camps in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak," reports the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who adds that the operations began two years before the 9/11 attacks and were "directed by elite Iraqi military units."

The existence of these documents, and the nature of what they describe, has been confirmed to the Standard by eleven U.S. government officials, Hayes says.

If true, the documents represent a bombshell finding that shatters the claims of Iraq war critics who have maintained for three years that Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to Islamic terrorism.

That would be quite a straw man you're erecting. As far as I know, and I've been right in the mix from the beginning, nobody but a handful of whackjobs has ever made the claim that Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to Islamic terrorism. The claim was alternately that he had no connection to 9/11, and no connection to Al Qaeda. The fact that he was connected to Islamic terrorism has never been in doubt by anyone, including the left. There's nothing new or secret about it. He financed both the anti-Israeli suicide bombers after we declared our intent to invade, and his funding of the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) has been well-documented and is well-known. So unless these new documents show a connection to 9/11 or Al Qaeda, then they don't drop a bombshell on anything.

 

[Stephanie]

That would be quite a straw man you're erecting. As far as I know, and I've been right in the mix from the beginning, nobody but a handful of whackjobs has ever made the claim that Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to Islamic terrorism. The claim was alternately that he had no connection to 9/11, and no connection to Al Qaeda. The fact that he was connected to Islamic terrorism has never been in doubt by anyone, including the left. There's nothing new or secret about it. He financed both the anti-Israeli suicide bombers after we declared our intent to invade, and his funding of the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) has been well-documented and is well-known. So unless these new documents show a connection to 9/11 or Al Qaeda, then they don't drop a bombshell on anything.

You say all this now. Maybe you knew this, but you know for a fact that even the democrats in Congress have been spouting their was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. I've heard a lot on the left say that Saddam was NO THREAT. Had no WMDs and had no ties to Al Qaeda. Your saying that the left all along has been saying they knew this is.....well..... Bs. :spank3:

Let's see- Saddam + Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda + Bin Laden. Bin Laden + 9/11 hummmmmm

 

[Nightwish]

You say all this now. Maybe you knew this, but you know for a fact that even the democrats in Congress have been spouting their was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. I've heard a lot on the left say that Saddam was NO THREAT. Had no WMDs and had no ties to Al Qaeda. Your saying that the left all along has been saying they knew this is.....well, Bs. :spank3:

Context is everything. The claim by BushCo was that Saddam was an imminent threat to the security of the United States, and they went to great lengths to make it appear as if another attack on American soil might be right around the corner, and that Saddam Hussein was behind it. The counterclaim from the Left was that Saddam Hussein was not a threat (to the United States or to major US interests, other than oil, overseas). You have to take it in context with the claims that it was meant to counter. If the BushCo argument had been that we must go to war against Iraq, because he sponsors terrorism against Israel and Iran, or that he might sponsor somebody to bomb an embassy, or that he was a threat to any given one of his neighbors, then your "no threat" interpretation might have some merit. But that wasn't their argument. They wouldn't have gotten anywhere with that argument, because folks would have said, "Well, if he's a threat to Israel or Iran, then that's their problem." It was understood that he wasn't the Easter Bunny, that he was still a dangerous man, and might still have been a threat to other nations in the Middle East. But the argument from the Left was that he was not a significant or imminent threat to the United States, and that what threat he might have posed to us was not significant enough to warrant a full-scale war.

The Salman Pak documentation isn't likely to be a smoking gun either. That allegation comes up every few months, but it continually falls flat in light of the fact that it was also found to have been abandoned since shortly after the first Gulf War. All in all, it sounds like the author of your article has taken about 10% negligle fact and tossed in about 90% conjecture. This is no surprise, considering that it appears to come from some of the most disingenuous sources on the internet. There are plenty of good and reputable conservatively-slanted news sites, but Weekly Standard and Newsmax are not among them. Newsmax, in fact, is one of the most disreputable rags I've ever seen. A few weeks ago, I personally caught them in a lie (actually I've caught them in a number of errors and/or outright fabrications, but this time I took it right to them), fudging poll results in their publication, and refusing the publish the actual poll from which their altered figures were taken. I found the actual poll, emailed them a direct link to it, and pointed out exactly which figures had been fudged by their writers, and they refused to retract or correct the error. Believe me, it'll be a rare day that you find a piece of honest journalism on that website. Though I suppose they're no worse than some of the left-wing rags out there.

PS -- as long as we're on the subject of disreputable rags, also stay away from World Net Daily. It's as bad as the other two. Drudge is pretty decent, most of the time, although he's an admitted Republican activist. Still, once you get past the slant (what journal doesn't have a slant these days?), he at least tries to be honest most of the time.

 

[Nightwish]

Let's see- Saddam + Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda + Bin Laden. Bin Laden + 9/11 hummmmmm

So far, Saddam + Al Qaeda hasn't been conclusively shown. It has been shown that at least one member of Saddam's administration had some contact with Atta in Prague (though the officers who eavesdropped on the conversation claimed that there was nothing said to indicate their meeting was about Al Qaeda), but no connection to Saddam himself has been shown. Al Qaeda's activity in Iraq, while he was in power, was confined to Kurd-controlled areas, where Saddam couldn't get to them. Saddam and bin Laden were mortal enemies. In one of the audio tapes where bin Laden, from hiding, called for his troops to rally and attack the US again, he also called for them to bring him the head of Saddam Hussein. "The enemy of my enemy" does not apply in this case. Saddam was the only person that bin Laden hated even more than the US. Saddam was an even worse devil, in the eyes of radical Islamists, than the US. He was a non-practicing Muslim who ran a secular nation, refusing to allow his Muslim nation to become a theocratic nation (the goal of the Islamists), and even worse, he was a Muslim who murdered other Muslims. There was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. None whatsoever.

 

[Stephanie]

Context is everything. The claim by BushCo was that Saddam was an imminent threat to the security of the United States, and they went to great lengths to make it appear as if another attack on American soil might be right around the corner, and that Saddam Hussein was behind it. The counterclaim from the Left was that Saddam Hussein was not a threat (to the United States or to major US interests, other than oil, overseas). You have to take it in context with the claims that it was meant to counter. If the BushCo argument had been that we must go to war against Iraq, because he sponsors terrorism against Israel and Iran, or that he might sponsor somebody to bomb an embassy, or that he was a threat to any given one of his neighbors, then your "no threat" interpretation might have some merit. But that wasn't their argument. They wouldn't have gotten anywhere with that argument, because folks would have said, "Well, if he's a threat to Israel or Iran, then that's their problem." It was understood that he wasn't the Easter Bunny, that he was still a dangerous man, and might still have been a threat to other nations in the Middle East. But the argument from the Left was that he was not a significant or imminent threat to the United States, and that what threat he might have posed to us was not significant enough to warrant a full-scale war.

The Salman Pak documentation isn't likely to be a smoking gun either. That allegation comes up every few months, but it continually falls flat in light of the fact that it was also found to have been abandoned since shortly after the first Gulf War. All in all, it sounds like the author of your article has taken about 10% negligle fact and tossed in about 90% conjecture. This is no surprise, considering that it appears to come from some of the most disingenuous sources on the internet. There are plenty of good and reputable conservatively-slanted news sites, but Weekly Standard and Newsmax are not among them. Newsmax, in fact, is one of the most disreputable rags I've ever seen. A few weeks ago, I personally caught them in a lie (actually I've caught them in a number of errors and/or outright fabrications, but this time I took it right to them), fudging poll results in their publication, and refusing the publish the actual poll from which their altered figures were taken. I found the actual poll, emailed them a direct link to it, and pointed out exactly which figures had been fudged by their writers, and they refused to retract or correct the error. Believe me, it'll be a rare day that you find a piece of honest journalism on that website. Though I suppose they're no worse than some of the left-wing rags out there.

Oop's I was editing my post as you were writing your's. Here's what I was saying at the end.
Saddam + Al Qaeda , Bin Laden + Al Qaeda , Al Qaeda Bin Laden + Saddam + 9/11.
I'm not saying that you have believe anything from any site, it states that the document's that was in Iraq will unleash a whole new picture of why we went into Iraq. Thats all. And I will be glad to see the lefty congresscritter's eat their words and choke on them. So

 

[Nightwish]

Oop's I was editing my post as you were writing your's. Here's what I was saying at the end.
Saddam + Al Qaeda , Bin Laden + Al Qaeda , Al Qaeda Bin Laden + 9/11.

I caught that, and replied above. By the way, in your edited post, you said that the Democrats in Congress have been spouting that there is no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That's true, but that's not what the article you posted said they've been saying. It said they've been saying there was no connection to Islamic terrorism (of any kind).

I'm not saying that you have believe anything from any site, it states that the document's that was in Iraq will unleash a whole new ballgame of why we went into Iraq. Thats all. And I will be glad to see the lefty congresscritter's eat their words and choke on them. So

Unfortunately, Newsmax is pretty fond of making that claim. They make it on a nearly weekly basis. And if they had the integrity to retract statements when proven wrong, they would have had to do so quite a few times by now. If there's one truth you can rely on, it is this: in about any given issue of Newsmax, you'll find at least one article that can be summed up as "any day now, we'll have that smoking gun."

 

[Stephanie]

nightwish, your quick on the keyboard. We keep crossing our post's. I'm an older person who has to go back and do some editing after I post. Give an old lady a chance....

 

[Nightwish]

nightwish, your quick on the keyboard. We keep crossing our post's. I'm an older person who has to go back and do some editing after I post. Give an old lady a chance....

LOL. And I'm sure that Alaskan cold doesn't do much to make one's bones less crotchety this time of year! Sorry, I'll try to be a little more patient in responding.

 

[Stephanie]

LOL. And I'm sure that Alaskan cold doesn't do much to make one's bones less crotchety this time of year! Sorry, I'll try to be a little more patient in responding.

WHO YOU CALLING CROTCHETY WILLIS. :teeth:
And if you recall at my orginal post I also included the Weeky Standard, so no I didn't just relay on Newsmax. So for now it's a wait and see what all the documents will bring out into the open.

 

[Annie]

WHO YOU CALLING CROTCHETY WILLIS. :teeth:
And if you recall at my orginal post I also included the Weeky Standard, so no I didn't just relay on Newsmax. So for now it's a wait and see what all the documents will bring out into the open.

And Hayes has been trying to get those documents looked at for a long time:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26925&page=1&highlight=Hayes

http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27032&highlight=Hayes

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/329paqcc.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/345qrbbj.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/check.asp?idArticle=6380&r=eerto

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/475yhurv.asp

 

[Stephanie]

Thank's Kat, My memory has never been the best, but I see this has been brought up already.

 

[Annie]

Thank's Kat, My memory has never been the best, but I see this has been brought up already.

That doesn't matter Stephanie, the important thing is that the gov't NOT just burn this stuff, but put it out for all to see.

You were right to put that post there.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Context is everything. The claim by BushCo was that Saddam was an imminent threat to the security of the United States, and they went to great lengths to make it appear as if another attack on American soil might be right around the corner, and that Saddam Hussein was behind it. The counterclaim from the Left was that Saddam Hussein was not a threat (to the United States or to major US interests, other than oil, overseas). You have to take it in context with the claims that it was meant to counter. If the BushCo argument had been that we must go to war against Iraq, because he sponsors terrorism against Israel and Iran, or that he might sponsor somebody to bomb an embassy, or that he was a threat to any given one of his neighbors, then your "no threat" interpretation might have some merit. But that wasn't their argument. They wouldn't have gotten anywhere with that argument, because folks would have said, "Well, if he's a threat to Israel or Iran, then that's their problem." It was understood that he wasn't the Easter Bunny, that he was still a dangerous man, and might still have been a threat to other nations in the Middle East. But the argument from the Left was that he was not a significant or imminent threat to the United States, and that what threat he might have posed to us was not significant enough to warrant a full-scale war.

The Salman Pak documentation isn't likely to be a smoking gun either. That allegation comes up every few months, but it continually falls flat in light of the fact that it was also found to have been abandoned since shortly after the first Gulf War. All in all, it sounds like the author of your article has taken about 10% negligle fact and tossed in about 90% conjecture. This is no surprise, considering that it appears to come from some of the most disingenuous sources on the internet. There are plenty of good and reputable conservatively-slanted news sites, but Weekly Standard and Newsmax are not among them. Newsmax, in fact, is one of the most disreputable rags I've ever seen. A few weeks ago, I personally caught them in a lie (actually I've caught them in a number of errors and/or outright fabrications, but this time I took it right to them), fudging poll results in their publication, and refusing the publish the actual poll from which their altered figures were taken. I found the actual poll, emailed them a direct link to it, and pointed out exactly which figures had been fudged by their writers, and they refused to retract or correct the error. Believe me, it'll be a rare day that you find a piece of honest journalism on that website. Though I suppose they're no worse than some of the left-wing rags out there.

PS -- as long as we're on the subject of disreputable rags, also stay away from World Net Daily. It's as bad as the other two. Drudge is pretty decent, most of the time, although he's an admitted Republican activist. Still, once you get past the slant (what journal doesn't have a slant these days?), he at least tries to be honest most of the time.

You're so pathetic and desperate. You make me laugh. Your pathetic party will never win again. Your communist dream is over.

 

[Nightwish]

You're so pathetic and desperate. You make me laugh.

Well, the ad homs didn't take long!

Your pathetic party will never win again.

Which party would that be? I hope that you're not assuming I'm Democrat. I dislike them nearly as much as the Republicans. And I hope you're not naive enough to believe that only Dems and Libs are critical of Bush or the situation in Iraq.

Your communist dream is over.

You're losing credibility with every ad hom. You really should stop while you're ahead. The more you resort to ad hominem fallacies, the more you tacitly admit you've got no substantial retort. So what shall it be?

 

[Nightwish]

WHO YOU CALLING CROTCHETY WILLIS. :teeth:
And if you recall at my orginal post I also included the Weeky Standard, so no I didn't just relay on Newsmax. So for now it's a wait and see what all the documents will bring out into the open.

Actually, in the earlier post in which I first brought up the disreputable rags, I included Weekly Standard in that analysis. Newsmax, WND, and Weekly Standard are probably the three worst right-wing "news" journals out there. There are plenty of good ones out there, but those three should be avoided. They are pretty notorious for misinformation and outright fabricated stories. I've never found much to complain about in the Drudge Report. I don't know how reliable NRO is, as I've not paid much attention to it. But those first three are about the worst the right has to offer. And to be fair, the left has an equal share of misbegotten hacks trying to pass off their bluster as journalism.

*Edit: mistakenly said New Republic (which I also don't pay much attention to), but meant National Review Online (NRO).

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Actually, in the earlier post in which I first brought up the disreputable rags, I included Weekly Standard in that analysis. Newsmax, WND, and Weekly Standard are probably the three worst right-wing "news" journals out there. There are plenty of good ones out there, but those three should be avoided. They are pretty notorious for misinformation and outright fabricated stories. I've never found much to complain about in the Drudge Report. I don't know how reliable New Republic is, as I've not paid much attention to it. But those first three are about the worst the right has to offer. And to be fair, the left has an equal share of misbegotten hacks trying to pass off their bluster as journalism.

WHat fake stories has Newsmax put out?

 

[Nightwish]

WHat fake stories has Newsmax put out?

A couple weeks ago, for instance, they published a story about a majority of Dems believing that Iraq was better off with Saddam Hussein in power. In that story, they cited a poll, then fudged the numbers from that poll in order to support that rediculous story. In other words, they cited a poll, but didn't publish it, then put fake numbers in place of the real ones. I actually found the poll and emailed them a link, along with a commentary pointing out exactly where they erred. They've refused to retract or amend their article. I suspect that they knew the numbers were wrong when they printed the article, and I suspect that it was intentional, which is why they've refused to retract or amend the story, because their whole angle was based on those fake numbers.

There have been several other instances in the past, including posting an article about a "smoking gun" in the form of aluminum tubes that Newsmax (and WND also posted a similar article at the same time) claimed were for use in centrifuges ... after the IAEA ruled that the tubes could not be used for centrifuges and that they were only good for use in conventional missiles, and after the White House conceded that the IAEA was correct. They already knew the story was false, but published it anyway.

Those are just a couple examples.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

A couple weeks ago, for instance, they published a story about a majority of Dems believing that Iraq was better off with Saddam Hussein in power. In that story, they cited a poll, then fudged the numbers from that poll in order to support that rediculous story. In other words, they cited a poll, but didn't publish it, then put fake numbers in place of the real ones. I actually found the poll and emailed them a link, along with a commentary pointing out exactly where they erred. They've refused to retract or amend their article. I suspect that they knew the numbers were wrong when they printed the article, and I suspect that it was intentional, which is why they've refused to retract or amend the story, because their whole angle was based on those fake numbers.

There have been several other instances in the past, including posting an article about a "smoking gun" in the form of aluminum tubes that Newsmax (and WND also posted a similar article at the same time) claimed were for use in centrifuges ... after the IAEA ruled that the tubes could not be used for centrifuges and that they were only good for use in conventional missiles, and after the White House conceded that the IAEA was correct. They already knew the story was false, but published it anyway.

Those are just a couple examples.

Oh. Bogus polls. Are polls are bogus. From my experience, most dems do in fact believe invading Iraq was a bad idea in general. It rings true to me. Anything of substance? Forged memos ala Rather-style, for instance?

 

[Nightwish]

Oh. Bogus polls. Are polls are bogus. From my experience, most dems do in fact believe invading Iraq was a bad idea in general. It rings true to me. Anything of substance? Forged memos ala Rather-style, for instance?

There's a world of difference between saying the Dems believe the war was a bad idea, and saying the Dems believe that Iraq was better off with Saddam Hussein in power. The first is generally true, the second is alarmingly false. It was the second that Newsmax claimed, then faked numbers to support it. And whether or not the poll was bogus is irrelevant. It was a real poll that they cited. They just didn't report the numbers as they actually appeared in the poll.

There were two back-to-back questions that were central to the article. One was "Do you think Iraq would be better off if we had not invaded and Saddam were still in power?" The second was "Do you think the world would be better off if we had not invaded and Saddam were still in power." To the first question, a majority of Dems answered NO, as did a majority of Republicans. But Newsmax claimed the opposite, posting instead the numbers from the second question (to which a majority of Dems said YES), claiming they were the numbers to the first question. That's just flagrant dishonest journalism. I might have been inclined to give them a pass on that one, that maybe it was an innocent error, but considering their history of bad journalism, and their refusal to amend or retract their article, I will not give them a pass, and I've concluded that it must have been deliberately misleading.

As far as the CBS memo, yes, they did get caught on that one. As did the New York Times with their writer fabricating stories. It happens on both sides. Is it any worse than the administration being fooled by a sophomoric forgery and touting it to the public as true and accurate, three months after the CIA had already told Bush it wasn't?