Democracy for Vancouver

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1. Repeat after me — there were no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. And posting from a pro-Likud article ain’t gonna make it so:

   The president of the International Intelligence Summit is John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor who claims to have once held some of the highest security clearances in the world with special access to NATO Cosmic, CIA codeword, and Top Secret Nuclear files.’ Although Loftus is an ardent supporter of the Bush administration’s global war on terror,’ he stands outside the inner circles of the administration because of his contentious views, including his writings about the Bush family’s history of purported business relations with the Nazis.

   In The Secret War Against the Jews (1994), one of his four books, Loftus claims that the Bush clan made its fortune through direct and indirect dealings with the Nazis starting in the 1920s and continuing into the first years of World War II, a contention he has made elsewhere. In an article on his website, Loftus writes: The Bush family’s scandal is that they funded Hitler and profited from the Holocaust’ (October 31, 2003). In the same article, Loftus says that President George W. Bush is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but has a good heart and the good sense not to follow in his father’s footsteps.’ According to Loftus, ‘W’ has some good people around him who keep a firewall in the White House against his father’s oil cronies.’

   The summit says that it recruits active serving members of the government, like Harold Rhode of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to serve as neutral moderators’ for its sessions. Rhode has been repeatedly identified with the neoconservative clique in the Pentagon that has promoted the Iraq War and action against Iran. According to respected Mideast commentator Juan Cole: Rhode is a longtime Middle East specialist in the Defense Department, who has cultivated far right pro-Likud cronies for many years, more or less establishing a cell within the Department of Defense’ (August 29, 2004).

   I seem to remember a lot of “documents” proving that Iraq was buying yellow cake out of Niger. Those all turned out to be forgeries put forth by Berlusconi’s Italian intelligence services, but useful in justifying the rush to war, since the discovery that they were forgeries was well past the date of hostilities.

   This whole neo-con project of giving “liberty” through force is so thoroughly discredited, you really need to find a new schtick.

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   1. Above comment written by Aneurin on November 20th, 2007 at 10:44 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

2. Oh criminy, you’re posting information from a group that has Brigitte Gabriel as a member?

   Other members of the Intelligence Summit’s advisory council include Yossef Bodansky, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Pauline Neville-Jones (former chair of the British Joint Intelligence Committee), Richard Marcinko (author and former Navy SEAL), Yoram Hessel (former senior Israeli Mossad officer), Brigitte Gabriel (founder of American Congress for Truth, which fights Islamic totalitarianism’), Steve Pomerantz (former FBI counterterrorism director), Bahukutumbi Raman (former counterterrorism chief, India), Tashbih Sayyed (adjunct fellow at Foundation for the Defense of Democracies), Oded Shoham (Israel Defense Forces), and Wayne Simmons (former CIA operative).

   Gabriel attended Joe Zarelli’s Vancouver event and is a certified nut.

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   2. Above comment written by Aneurin on November 20th, 2007 at 10:47 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

3. The article linked is a polemic and a speculation - nothing more. I fully admit that I don’t know what happened in northern Syria, or why there is such limited information from all potential sources that were directly involved, but Glick does not offer anything verifiable. Best to either keep quiet or demand information, rather than “imagine”.

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   3. Above comment written by paul spencer on November 20th, 2007 at 1:56 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

4. Sorry folks, but I will not be dismissed that lightly over something like this. Consider the very next paragraph from the article…
   
   As Loftus summarized, “The gist of the new evidence is this: Roughly one-quarter of Saddam’s WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid 1990s. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during the mid-to-late-1990’s. The Russians insisted on removing another quarter in the last few months before the war. The last remaining WMD, the contents of Saddam’s nuclear weapons labs, were still inside Iraq on the day when the coalition forces arrived in 2003. His nuclear weapons equipment was hidden in enormous underwater warehouses beneath the Euphrates River. Saddam’s entire nuclear inventory was later stolen from these warehouses right out from under the Americans’ noses.”

   That is a plausible explanation, and is based upon the studies of someone who translated unique captured documents from several different languages. I cannot easily dismiss a statement like that without some definitive proof to the contrary, and the American Press has been silent. Again, the view from overseas is different, and relies on different news sources. We are not the hub of knowledge on this here in America’s the ‘Couv…

   Consider that statement with what we partially know about the A.Q. Khan network, and the presense of Pakistani v Indian nuclear weapons, and it it clear that we have developing situations that we will be dealing with for years to come. While we hold our breath hoping that Musharaff doesn’t set off WWV, we have been allowing him to protect A.Q. Khan from interrogation by a lot of people who would like to pick his brains about exactly what he did and with whom.

   Folks, let’s face facts: the Bush Administration will be with us until 12:01 PM on January 20, 2009. Unless Dennis Kucinich manages to muster an impeachment majority before then, I believe it is prudent to take a World view on things like this, and to try to consider the serious Foreign Policy qualifications of the various Presidential Candidates, no matter who they are. This issue will not go away and the next President will be forced to deal with this in some way, and I cannot predict how. Some of the ways are to terrible to even consider…

   This subject is one of the things that I expect any candidate for President to be able to discuss rationally; ergo I think it useful to sort the fertilizer from the shoe polish, and attempt to rationally determine what the real truth is, and be able to judge the qualifications of Clinton/Romney/Edwards/Thompson, et al.

   I will absolutely agree with all of you that there were not any Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq. This article presents a plausible explanation of one reason why that may be true, and from a unique perspective that none of us us privy to. (I am assuming that none of you have conducted an independent translation from Arabic to English on these documents).

   You simply cannot deny that something major inside of Syria was hit by the Israelis, many people know exactly what that target was, and are not talking about it at all.

   In an attempt to rise above the “Heckle and Jeckle” nature that so often characterizes discussions like this, I submit that some of the fact that this writer has submitted are worthy of consideration and discussion by us, right here.

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   4. Above comment written by Chief Wahoo on November 20th, 2007 at 8:58 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

5. OK D4V, you’ve just jumped the shark.

   I’m shocked and amazed David Horowitz’s fantastically paranoid schtick becomes a primary source for one of your featured writers; personally I would prefer the use of Conspiracyplanet over Frontpagemag. At least CP is entertaining.

   See this story for comparison:

   http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?ChannelID=124

   (”…enormous underwater warehouses…” Wow.)

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   admin posted a reply on November 21st, 2007 at 6:39 am:

   D4v does not have “featured writers”. Anyone so predisposed can post content here. We try to be democratic in this regard.

   If it becomes unmanageable, the policy may have to change.

   You too can be famous here. Our readership has been increasing significantly over the last few months.

   Just let us know and we will set up a blogger account for you

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   5. Above comment written by arturo on November 21st, 2007 at 6:08 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

6. Chief -

   No disagreement here about the possibilities mentioned. Problem for me is that there is no verifiable information in Glick’s article. If the Loftus’ citations contained anything that could be compared to some known document, then there can be some basis for acceptance or rejection. As it is, it’s just good old conspiracy-theory-type hypotheticals presented as facts.

   I don’t even disagree with the idea of presenting hypotheticals - just let us not raise them to the level of decision points concerning presidential candidates.

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   6. Above comment written by paul spencer on November 21st, 2007 at 9:29 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

7. I think Arturo raises an excellent point, and that is, what is the mission of the DFV blog? Is it the promotion of unverified Likud-funded conspiracy theories, or is it a place for like-minded progressives to gather and discuss the issues of the day from a local perspective?

   Conservatives already have their thumb on the scales of traditional media, so why allow them yet another forum to spew their baloney? They already have gathering places in the ’sphere: FreeRepublic, Little Green Footballs, etc.

   On the other hand, DFV has always been a place for the posting of views that may challenge one’s preconceived notions. But the honest disagreements have been over things like ballot measures, not unverified neo-con conspiracy fantasies. So I don’t appreciate it when a local conservative, who has his own “blog” (and makes posts over there that revel in his ability to stir the turd), takes advantage of DFV’s free speech welcome mat.

   I am afraid that we’re at the point that if Zarelli hosts another “Israel is right, everyone else is wrong” forum at the downtown Hilton, that DFV will cheer it on. Anarchy is a good thing, until conservatives take advantage of it.

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   admin posted a reply on November 21st, 2007 at 11:47 am:

   And who is going to be the censor? Who determines when a blogger or commenter or post has crossed the line and is to be banned from the site?

   This administrator doesn’t want that position.

   One can choose to not read a particular author or post.

   Or…

   If there are frequent bloggers here that want to moderate all the posts and vote on everything before it is posted, let me know and we can set that up.

   But this administrator is probably not going to want to continue to be a part of such a site.

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   Aneurin posted a reply on November 21st, 2007 at 12:54 pm:

   I’m not arguing for censorship or banning of anyone. But most blogs have a list of standard front pagers. The rest get to make non-front page posts. That’s true at Washblog, Daily Kos, MyDD, et al. If you or I posted the opposite of what Chief posted at Free Republic or LGF, we’d be banned in a heartbeat, but again, I’m not arguing for anyone to get banned.

   Voting for a post doesn’t work since it can remove the immediacy of the content.

   All media outlets, and blogs are a media outlets, require some editorial direction.

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   7. Above comment written by Aneurin on November 21st, 2007 at 11:30 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

8. The issue is understood. We may find the blog overrun by “non-progressives”.

   But there is still the problem of who decides who the “frontpagers” are unless it is done in some democratic fashion. For instance, there are surely progressives posting on this site that other progressives might want banned from the front page. Some of the blogs use a rating system.

   If others who contribute frequently want such a system implemented, it surely can be done. This administrator would rather be tolerant of all viewpoints unless it gets out of hand.

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   8. Above comment written by admin on November 21st, 2007 at 2:00 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).