Bush Administration Keeps Secret Damaging NIE on Afghanistan
By John Amato Friday Sep 26, 2008 2:00pmThe Bush administration will keep trying to game the system until their last day in office. Good riddance.
The Bush administration is refusing to declassify a damaging National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan. Compare that to the White House's efforts to declassify the erroneous NIE saying that Iraq had WMD during the run-up to the war with Iraq...read on
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Well, What did we expect from the most corrupt, immoral, evil Administration of our times.
[Deleted. The topic of this thread is "Bush Administration Keeps Secret Damaging NIE on Afghanistan." Please stick to the topic-Sitemonitor]
Rep. Baldwin (D-WI) Introduces Bill to Undo and Prosecute Bush-Cheney Crimes
http://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/?p=5757
Gee, too bad we had to pour all of our troops and efforts into the Iraq invasion and occupation, instead of dealing with the people who actually attacked us from Afghanistan... But you know know, being such the threat that Saddam was...
link above not working...
[Yes it is. What's your vid got to do with this topic? Not much. Deleted-Sitemonitor]
"Game the System" Perfect description. And after all, isn't that what the Chimporer has made it into, in his cack-handed dash to restore dignity and whatever other bullshit he claimed he was going to brang to the office.
This has been every bit as illegal and murderous as the CheneyBushCo Iraqi 'Adventure,' and we have no business -- never HAD any business -- being there in the first place. It's already a war crime. This NIE will make it worse? Hardly.
Will we get to see the NIE if Obama's elected?
He says he wants to pour American troops into the land of prosperous poppy growers.
We paid for that NIE. The public should demand it.
VietVet8666 @ 8:
Now now,
with the rising food prices (due to among other reasons, increased fuel costs) the price of wheat has risen so much that the farmers in Afghanistan are voluntarily going over to planting wheat instead of poppies. Even going so far as to (drug traffic investigators believe) rip up the poppies and planting wheat.
Of course, the warlords might decide to increase the payment to the farmers for opium, resulting in a better income distribution from the drug trade. See, its not all bad.
They want us to believe Afghanistan is working like they want us to believe the surge in Iraq is working, so when presumably they're replaced with a Democratic administration, when the expected fall comes, it'll come on another's watch, and they'll try to make the claim that it's their successors fault that we "lost."
Afghanistan in more in the hands of the tribal heads than in the government, much like the "success" of the surge in Iraq is because of the Awakening Councils of tribal heads, and I foresee the likeliness of a similar outcome in Iraq, economically powered by the West love of drugs.
dont want to be a thread jacker, but i just wanted to say rip to paul newman, a great actor, humanitarian, husband, father, grandfather and liberal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtiaf0rvdQs
think the voters in ct wish they had listened to him now?
wonder how fox will handle his obit
you have to wonder, if the report was a positive
reflection of BUSH tactics/strategies regarding
the conflict in afghanistan would they still keep
it classified?
He has HAD TO cover nearly ALL his tracks, throughout his career, ...of ALL his FAILURES. A criminals "wet dream", of easily being ABLE to cover all his tracks, whenever he feels like it.
"Bush has refused to authorize the SEC to release its full report on the Harken investigation."
"In reality, Enron and Harken have more in common than their auditing firm, Arthur Andersen. During Bush's tenure as a director at Harken, the company recorded a transaction so eerily similar to Enron's practices that "the people at Enron could have gone to school on this thing," according to an accounting expert."
What do you expect from a bunch of treasonous, torturing, corrupt, war profiteers? It's just what they do.
The idea that the Karzai government is paying farmers to replace opium with wheat is a good one, because not only can they sell wheat on the open market, and in much of Asia and Africa such staples as rice and wheat are getting expensive, and of low supply. The only problem is it's been tried before, and didn't work. Under Clinton money was sent to the Taliban, because they were attempting to fight the poppy merchants and were destroying poppy crops. But the drug growing and smuggling returned.
The Taliban became extremely arrogant and draconian in their laws, particularly regarding women, and they blew up 500 foot statues of the Buddha, and they sheltered Ben Laden, but never really attacked us or their neighbors.
That's the problem with the whole region, alliances are so rapidly changeable. It's like Project Ajax overthrows Mossadeq in Iran, and it returns to us with the Islamic Revolution about 28 years later. We've been supporting the Saudis because of their oil, not their enlightenment. ray gunn and rummy supported Saddam Hussein because he was fighting our official boogy-man the Ayatollah Khomeini, only then to have to go to war with Hussein. We supported someone nearly as bad as Hussein in Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Everything we attempt to set up in the region returns to haunt us. A big part of our Foreign Aid expenditure is propping up Israel with the help of the Germans.
Compare to their attempt to block investigations into what happened at the Pentagon that fateful day
When we first invaded Afghanistan I was reminded of the following, by Kipling:
"When you're lying there wounded on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Better roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your God like a soldier!"
Things have not gone very well for us there, as it went for the British and the Russians. We could have gotten al Qaeda and the Taliban, treed as they were in the Tora Bora Mountains. But Bush wanted Iraq and Saddam, so we looked away and that moment of distraction has cost us dearly, in lives as well as treasure.
Matters are almost unsalvageable, based on the public statements made by Admiral Mullen and by the leaked bits of the NIE reported above. We are now faced with the possibility of a worse set of threats than we faced in August 2001.
ysbaddaden @ 11:
It's not so much that we love the drugs; have you seen what kind of "leaders" we have?
I mean - George W Bush and Tony Blair aside, none of them are anything to write home about.
Bush and Blair are the icing on the molehill.
We need those drugs.
I hope this clears things up.
The West
I'm sure they're too busy planning the October Surprise to worry about our ramblings about secrecy and the rule of law. Unfortunately we've been playing catch up for the entirety of this Administration. Too bad we couldn't get ahead of the curve a few times on these guys. Past crimes often predict future behavior etc.
Remember the Military is being activated on American soil starting Oct. 1st.
Remember that FEMA was set up in New York City on Sept. 10th..
Remember that they planned to invade Afghanistan before the attacks even took place.
Let's stop following in the tail dust and get out in front of these guys a little bit. Play the game head to head instead of chasing ass all the time.
Hey - a secret here, a betrayed agent there, an unheeded PDB way back then; it doesn't matter.
The Repukes aren't interested in effective government.
They are interested in enriching themselves and their cronies. They are interested in staying in power and staying out of jail.
That is why they are already working on stealing the coming election.
Again.
constituent @ 13:
My guess would be no. They would declassify it in a heartbeat. They would use it as a means to say that their policies, who John McCain also supports, have been effective. By keeping that grim Afghanistan NIE classified it keeps the focus on Iraq which they are trying to show is a success but in reality, its probably far from that.
Even while in prison the inmates don't like to verbalize there crimes, so this is really no surprise. Having screwed up Everything they have touched, they are now trying to hold onto the last of their secrets erroneously thinking that they might somehow be able to pull something off to make it go away.
The sociopath-in-chief has ruined three countries--Iraq, Afghanistan,and the United States of America.If we stay in Afghanistan it will resemble what happened to Russia.
When I walk down my street and see "McCain/Palin" sign it really pisses me off.My wife helps with thw statement,"Everybody has the right to be stupid."
And yet the Democrats give Bush exactly what Bush wants. Do you people know this or do you cower in fear and deny what the democrats have become?
Required @ 5:
That's what I'm getting out of this as well. Saddam is now in the past tense at this point, in any case. Get out of Iraq.
What I'm wondering is why the US and coalition forces can't then refocus on bringing the Taliban and any Al Quaida presence in Afghanistan to their knees (again), bring those evildoers to justice (again) and then concentrate on matters at home, which are far more pressing, imo.
John - really disappointed by the Democratic Party @ 25:
I tend to take a 'wait and see' attitude about Obama's future presidency, which must happen, in any case.
Bush is the worst president in American history. Bush facilitated the 9/11 attacks. Subsequently, Bush lied to Congress and the American people relative to the reasons for invading Iraq. Bush purposefully misled Congress and the American people. Then, Bush murdered more than 4,000 United States service members. And Bush wounded more than 30,000 United States service members. In torturing prisoners of war, Bush patently violated the Geneva Convention. Bush unlawfully wiretapped United States citizens. In using “signing statements” to challenge hundreds of laws passed by Congress, Bush violated the Constitution. Bush has ignored global warming. Bush is guilty of criminal negligence relative to the response to Hurricane Katrina. Bush disobeys our democratic values and Constitution. Bush is a disgrace to the United States.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
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