Rob,

I agree with you stance on the funding of terrorists. But you are clearly overlooking the personal issues of the hostage siutation. I’m not a negotiator, nor do I pretend to be, but when it’s your wife, your daughter; anyone will do anything to get them back safely, regardless of the potential effects of their actions.

I know there are many arguements for protecting the greater good, but those stances are much easier when the situation does not involve someone you care deeply about.

Such skilled detournement. Congrats Bat.

Sparkie,

While I am touched by both your compliment and your humility, I must acknowledge that it was you who brought up Niger, yellowcake, Joe Wilson, Wassim al-Zahawie, the Brits, and the forged Niger-Iraqi uranium sales contract (the memos were mere lagniappe,mon ami.)

I’m confident they knew before the NYT printed it.

What is the source of your information; space aliens? On what do you base your “confidence”; your own imagination?

President Bush’s statement in his State of the Union address was: “British Intelligence reports that Saddam has sought yellowcake in Africa.” That was a true statement. British Intel said that. True. He said “Africa”, not Niger, so Wilson lied about that. In addition, he did uncover evidence that yellowcake was sought, so he lied about that, as well. Wilson’s entire trip was a lie, promulgated by the CIA to “get the President”. Niger is only one country in Africa, btw.

“Coating the ransom money with Sarin nerve agent would be a nice start.There are 500 thousand tons of it in Iraq right now“

2Hotel9 on November 26, 2006 at 07:11 pm
Damn!!!! 2Hotel9 how do you come up with this shit.

Ps. Please feed the chickens organic foods.

Any newspaper with an anti-US agenda would print that info; any newspaper with no ethical or moral standards would print it. One hand washes the other.

Whistler,

Oh, I couldn’t care less about Sparkie. I’m simply concerned that such obvious misstatements should not go uncorrected.

I’m too older to allow fluff and bluster to pass as verity and substance. Besides, we had 8 years of that under Clinton, and look what it got us!

As soon as the entire news room at the NYT knows, national security is compromised. Notice this is before its printed.

Not exactly.

It is true that whoever leaks classified information, to the NYT or to any other news or media outlet, is subject to prosecution under the Espionage statutes (Title 18, USC). It is also true that whoever receives such information is equally guilty and at jeopardy, as Title 18, Section 793, USC, criminalizes the illicit or unauthorized receipt of classified information,

(b) Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, and with like intent or reason to believe, copies, takes, makes, or obtains, or attempts to copy, take, make, or obtain, any sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, document, writing, or note of anything connected with the national defense; or
(c) Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, receives or obtains or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain from any person, or from any source whatever, any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note, of anything connected with the national defense, knowing or having reason to believe, at the time he receives or obtains, or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain it, that it has been or will be obtained, taken, made, or disposed of by any person contrary to the provisions of this chapter…

The NYT and its editors, reporters, and publisher are further at risk under Title 18, Section 798, USC, which says in part,

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information —

Thus, both receipt and publication of classified defense or intelligence information are felonies.

Sparkie,

My, my! All that angst and anger. And all of it for nothing, too.

The Iraqi who visited Niger in February of 1999 was Wissam al-Zahawie, at the time Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican. If he is fond of Verdi’s arias (or Bottecelli’s nudes) I have seen no record of such. However, the man was hardly an “outcast,” as you so quaintly put it.

During the 1980′s, al-Zahawie was Saddam’s official delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and in 1995, he represented Iraq at the United Nations Special Session on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, where he ranted on about the need to “balance” Israel’s nuclear capability. Al-Zahawie was not a dilettante or an “outcast,” but a skilled diplomat, and Saddam’s senior representative on international nuclear affairs and proliferation.

When al-Zahawie was posted to Rome, in 1997, it was because this was literally Saddam’s only diplomatic window to the West. Few of the western democracies had formal diplomatic relations with Iraq following Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War. And when he made his trip to Niger, in February of 1999, there’s little doubt that he was there to discuss yellowcake… particularly as Niger had been Iraq’s original source of yellowcake, dating back to 1981, according to the Duelfer Report.

Incidentally, within two weeks of the al-Zahawie trip to Niger, the poor west African country was known to have been visited by another prominent Muslim, Pakistan’s international nuclear renegade, Dr. A. Q. Khan, whose party arrived in late February of 1999, according to the Times of India, after which they visited Chad, and the recently destroyed Shifa “aspirin factory” in the Sudan. Perhaps too, Dr. Khan was searching for sites at which to stage Wagner’s holocostal opera, Götterdämmerung.

Very good Mr. Goon.

The worst isn’t the paying of ransoms, ..its how the terrorists are using Iraqs oil and assets of the Iraqi government to fund their operations. i.e. ..with the complicity of some in power, part of the Iraqi government apparatus have turned into a funding mecca for the terrorists.

Okay, Sparkles… since you insist.

… you guys are totally right. We should only have state media and state news.

Of course, nobody suggested any such thing. The last thing this country needs is to further institutionalize and accredit the blatantly leftist bias of the MSN by putting those very same liberal reporters, headline writers, editors, and publishers on the payroll of the federal government.

Nor will it do you any good to try and change the subject simply because, as Pilgrim pointed out so succinctly, the facts are inconvenient.

Like the terrorists wouldn’t catch on that their money is being toyed with. BS. I’m confident they knew before the NYT printed it.

Your confidence is of no importance here at all.

First, there is no evidence that the money was being “toyed with”. It was being tracked. Successfully, too.

More importantly, whether the terror networks knew this or not is quite beside the point. The receipt and publication of classified defense and intelligence information by the NYT and other media outlets were violations of the US espionage laws. Re-read the quotations I’ve provided above. Or, look up the statute yourself. The wording, and the intent of those who wrote the legislation are still the same.

Finally, as for Libby and Wilson I’m surprised you’d stoop to bringing that subject into the conversation. You must be desperate to try and score some points. Perhaps panicked would be a better description.

If Libby leaks to get back at Wilson for debunking a blatant lie that everyone knows is a lie its fine, but when someone prints news about what we are doing to terror money networks its the end of the world.

Joe Wilson lied. Period. He lied in his NYT Op-Ed, lied in his book, lied to Nick Kristoff, and he lied to Vanity Fair magazine. As the editors of the Washington Post themselves put it,

… it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame’s CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming — falsely, as it turned out — that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush’s closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It’s unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Facts are indeed, so very inconvenient.

Sparkie-Kos what does Niger export?

ohhhhh, let me answer that one Whislter. Ah yellow cake.

After the NYT compromises the security of our financial surveillance programs, now they gleefully report their success in enabling the terrorists to get financing.
Why aren’t those traitors in jail?

i.e. care to guesstimate how much money radicals Shiites in government (e.g. al-Sadr) and their Sunni counterparts both in the national government and regional/local governments divert from what they are supposed to be doing and into helping finance extra-offical and/or personal endeavors? ..

Understood, Dan, but we should also remember that when one person pays to get their loved ones back it only emboldens the terrorists to kidnap someone else’s loved ones.

It’s a vicious cycle, and the only way to stop it is to stop paying.

r108
I think the people who talk to the NYT are the traitors right?

You know… you guys are totally right. We should only have state media and state news. That way we would only get the truth. Just like they get in Cuba.
Its bullshit. If Libby leaks to get back at Wilson for debunking a blatant lie that everyone knows is a lie its fine, but when someone prints news about what we are doing to terror money networks its the end of the world. You’re right Bat… the hypocracy is thick this morning. Like the terrorists wouldn’t catch on that their money is being toyed with. BS. I’m confident they knew before the NYT printed it. Its just a bunch of tools selectively bitching about the dissemination of classified info. If it benefits your cause its fine. If it doesn’t its illegal. Hypocracy for breakfast. Choke choke…

I don’t read the Daily Kos ever. Thanks though.
The memos (whether forged by the French or the Italians in consort with Mike Leeden) were from the Niger embassy in Italy. They were total forgeries. They were released twice because the first time it hardly made the news. The second time it made the state of the union. A freelance ‘spook’ delivered them. The first time to Italian intel and the second time, since the intel people knew they were fakes, to the media. The media blew it up by accident in an effort to see if they were legit. The british handed it over to us instead of telling the reporter they were fakes. It was a female italian reporter. and Cheney repeatedly talked about it and Tenet repeadedly warned him to shut the fuck up. The state of the union went through 40+ revisions because Tenet repeatedly removed the lies and the others repeatedly put them back. You guys can twist whatever bullshit out of it you want. I have looked into it and I’m not listening to biased bullshit from all you cock smooch hacks. If you want me to take your posts seriously BatONe, maybe you should comment seriously when I put effort into an original post.
Furthermore the Iraqi who was supposedly there making the arrangments was pro-West and that’s why Saddam put him in Europe. He is definately not the type of person Saddam would send on a supposed mission like that – an opera fan and pro-West outcast. On top of it all, the quantities and methods of transport alleged in the memos are total bs. It could have never plausibly been done from the transport perspective. You guys are sops. You gobble up lies like Haggard does meth, Foley does little buttholes, and Rush does heroin. You are so critical and smart yet you’re lied to and you love it, gobble it up, throw it around. You are worse than the MSM. Talk to me about being close minded… yea.

r108
You are totally wrong. Nothing new. Just wrong. Its a newspaper. any newspaper with that info would print it.