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Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who
retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. One thing that struck me is that Mr Pillar said that the decision to invade was a forgone conclusion something like six to nine months before the invasion, speaking as if this were a now-it-can-be-told revelation. But I had gathered this from the newspapers at the time, and given the logistics of projecting force to the other side of the world, it could be no other way, so I don't know what his point was. Perhaps the article is clearer. I haven't yet read Mr Pillar's article, but the counterfire has begun: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007981 The CIA is a very big place, with more opinions than people, and between Mr Pillar and Mr Christensen (who was of about the same rank as Mr Pillar), we now have two of them. I expect that we will see more very soon, if for no other reason than the CIA wanting not to take the entire blame for Iraq and its difficulties. On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. Mr Pillar then went on to say that this difference of judgement about likelihood of use proved that WMDs could not be the real reason for invasion. This is a non sequitur. Simply put, if the US administration was not convinced that Saddam was a danger, nothing would have happened, even if the Europeans were absolutely convinced that the danger was real. Consensus is not required, and different countries may well come to different policies. Joe Gwinn |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:08:02 -0500, the renowned Joseph Gwinn
wrote: snip I haven't yet read Mr Pillar's article, but the counterfire has begun: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200603...r-in-iraq.html snip |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article ,
Spehro Pefhany wrote: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200603.../intelligence- policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html Thanks. I've printed it out. Joe Gwinn |
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Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
Rex B wrote: Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. I think it's gone beyond "objective" being the reason for some articles. Look at this earlier comment: On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. Now Mr. Pillar can feel, believe, think any way he wants to of course. But I don't believe what he said is true. I remember it was England and the US who told lies back and forth to each other until they thought enough people believed them and then launched the attack. Can anyone remember/show us anything to back-up his allegations concerning the thoughts of the other world's security agencies? He says this, I feel, to try to blunt the public's opinion; after all, there's strength in numbers and if EVERYONE made the same blunders then the CIA can't be so bad after all. Nice try. If I were a reporter getting fed this drivel I'd be asking some pointed questions as well. Hell, reporters are just like us, right? (Well, at least they're not lawyers). dennis in nca |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
FWIW --
In any large organization there are always letters, memos, documentation and advocates on every side of every issue. Thus the organization is "right" no matter what happens. all they need to do is produce the "right" letter, memo, document and trot out the "right" advocate and say "I told you so." This is SOP but the problems start when the suits start believing in their own BS -- i.e. infallibility. The ancient Greek adage "those who the gods would destroy they first make proud" applies here in spades. The suits aid and abet in this process [of their own downfall] by refusing to accept probability estimates and demanding yes/no answers. That is another danger of being a suit -- you get what you demand even if its not what you want or need. Uncle George On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:08:02 -0500, Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. One thing that struck me is that Mr Pillar said that the decision to invade was a forgone conclusion something like six to nine months before the invasion, speaking as if this were a now-it-can-be-told revelation. But I had gathered this from the newspapers at the time, and given the logistics of projecting force to the other side of the world, it could be no other way, so I don't know what his point was. Perhaps the article is clearer. I haven't yet read Mr Pillar's article, but the counterfire has begun: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007981 The CIA is a very big place, with more opinions than people, and between Mr Pillar and Mr Christensen (who was of about the same rank as Mr Pillar), we now have two of them. I expect that we will see more very soon, if for no other reason than the CIA wanting not to take the entire blame for Iraq and its difficulties. On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. Mr Pillar then went on to say that this difference of judgement about likelihood of use proved that WMDs could not be the real reason for invasion. This is a non sequitur. Simply put, if the US administration was not convinced that Saddam was a danger, nothing would have happened, even if the Europeans were absolutely convinced that the danger was real. Consensus is not required, and different countries may well come to different policies. Joe Gwinn |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:51:26 -0600, Rex B
wrote: I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. ==================== Or we have been so indoctrinated that we have begun to view objective albeit contradictory points of view as subjective. In many cases it *NOT* the isolated facts, but the context and how these are connected and thus the conclusions that are the problem. For an interesting experience, use the internet and see what the non-US english language papers have to say. Manchester Guardian (UK) is a good place to start. see http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/t...es/0,,,00.html Time for deprogramming? Uncle George |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article . com,
"rigger" wrote: Rex B wrote: Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. I think it's gone beyond "objective" being the reason for some articles. My problem with these interviews is more basic. I'm not sure is the core problem is bias so much as simple lack of interviewing skills. Maybe it's both. Some of these interviewers seem incapable of letting an interviewee answer a question. Pattern: First, the long question, complete with two or three leading answers proposed by the interviewer. Then a short answer. Most interviewees don't question the the assumptions of the question, probably from politeness, so we are really hearing what the interviewer thinks, not what the interviewee thinks. It's very frustrating - I wanted to know what the interviewee thinks, but he hardly gets a word in edgewise. Look at this earlier comment: On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. Now Mr. Pillar can feel, believe, think any way he wants to of course. But I don't believe what he said is true. I remember it was England and the US who told lies back and forth to each other until they thought enough people believed them and then launched the attack. Can anyone remember/show us anything to back-up his allegations concerning the thoughts of the other world's security agencies? He says this, I feel, to try to blunt the public's opinion; after all, there's strength in numbers and if EVERYONE made the same blunders then the CIA can't be so bad after all. Nice try. Mr Pillar was in a position to know from direct personal experience what the CIA though, as well as what the other intelligence agencies thought about the issue. He was in charge of all Middle East intelligence at the CIA from 2000 to 2005, and as such would be talking to his counterparts in those other intelligence agencies, probably daily. This isn't something that someone in that sort of job would get wrong. Are you saying that he is lying? If I were a reporter getting fed this drivel I'd be asking some pointed questions as well. Hell, reporters are just like us, right? (Well, at least they're not lawyers). There is a difference between a sharp question and a leading question. Actually, I didn't hear any sharp questions. I for one would have asked him to explain how the difference in opinion on the likelihood that Saddam would use the WMDs proved that WMDs could not be the reason that the US administration went to war. One can phrase such a question neutrally, and politely, but it's still a sharp question. The answer is likely to be very revealing. Joe Gwinn |
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Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article . com,
"rigger" wrote: Can anyone remember/show us anything to back-up his allegations concerning the thoughts of the other world's security agencies? He says this, I feel, to try to blunt the public's opinion; after all, there's strength in numbers and if EVERYONE made the same blunders then the CIA can't be so bad after all. Nice try. If ALL intelligence agencies made the same mistake, there was little intelligence. -- Free men own guns, slaves don't www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5357/ |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
... In article . com, "rigger" wrote: Rex B wrote: Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. I've listened to the interview (available online at NPR's site), and I think the reason you got that impression is that you didn't read Pillar's article. In fact, the interview was excellent, far superior to anything you'll hear on commercial radio or television. And every "leading" question, as you would have noticed if you'd read Pillar's article, was drawn directly from what he said in that article. What Terry Gross faced was a fairly phlegmatic Pillar, and what she did about it was what any really good interviewer would do: go through the list of points that he made in his article, and ask him to explain them. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. Maybe you listened to a different interview. g It's also clear that you must have listened with enormous bias going in, because I don't believe any reasonable person (unless he didn't know what Pillar had said, and what was noteworthy and worth expanding upon in an interview) would have concluded that Pillar was being "led" in any direction except the one he had laid out in his own words. Comparing the article and the interview, it appears that Pillar is a more cautious speaker than he is a writer. The point of interviewing a man like that, who wrote an article like that, is to flesh out the points he made in the article. He dragged, but he eventually came around to explaining more about what he had written. That's the product of an expert interview. The average radio or TV interviewer would have gotten nothing much out of that man. He didn't come in ready to talk on his own. He came in ready to answer questions. I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. How much do you listen to NPR? I think it's gone beyond "objective" being the reason for some articles. My problem with these interviews is more basic. I'm not sure is the core problem is bias so much as simple lack of interviewing skills. Maybe it's both. Some of these interviewers seem incapable of letting an interviewee answer a question. What are you comparing them with? Pattern: First, the long question, complete with two or three leading answers proposed by the interviewer. In this case, the answers were those supplied by Pillar in his article. Then a short answer. Most interviewees don't question the the assumptions of the question, probably from politeness, so we are really hearing what the interviewer thinks, not what the interviewee thinks. It's very frustrating - I wanted to know what the interviewee thinks, but he hardly gets a word in edgewise. He never spoke more than a few words without a question, and he never said anything until he was reminded what he had written. That's being phlegmatic -- an interviewer's nightmare. g Look at this earlier comment: On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. WHOAH! He said nothing of the kind. Here's what he actually said, in a quote from his own article: "A view broadly held in the United States and even more so overseas was that deterrence of Iraq was working, that Saddam was being kept "in his box," and that the best way to deal with the weapons problem was through an aggressive inspections program to supplement the sanctions already in place. That the administration arrived at so different a policy solution indicates that its decision to topple Saddam was driven by other factors -- namely, the desire to shake up the sclerotic power structures of the Middle East and hasten the spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region. "If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath." The "dispute" as you put it was between the Bush administration and the rest of the world -- including the US's own intelligence community. Pillar continues his point: "The Bush administration deviated from the professional standard not only in using policy to drive intelligence, but also in aggressively using intelligence to win public support for its decision to go to war. This meant selectively adducing data -- "cherry-picking" -- rather than using the intelligence community's own analytic judgments. In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments." Pillar's article can only be read as an indictment of the way the Bush administration ignored the available intelligence, and as a confirmation that the decision had been made to go to war before the intelligence was even consulted. As Pillar said in his NPR interview, everyone in the intelligence community knew, by May of 2002, that the administration had already decided to go to war. The only purpose intelligence served was to support the decision that had already been made. -- Ed Huntress |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:08:02 -0500, Joseph Gwinn
wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. Did you see the recent ABC News report on this? http://www.intelligencesummit.org/ne...s/JL010606.php Btw..according to the original translators..ABC "softened" the content of the tapes. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/156129.php It appears that the Left may have to do some belly slitting when this is over and done with. Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIAofficer
Joseph Gwinn writes:
One thing that struck me is that Mr Pillar said that the decision to invade was a forgone conclusion something like six to nine months before the invasion, speaking as if this were a now-it-can-be-told revelation. But I had gathered this from the newspapers at the time, and given the logistics of projecting force to the other side of the world, it could be no other way, so I don't know what his point was. Perhaps the article is clearer. Wesley Clark said the same thing in his book. He was the one who warned Bush about Al Qaeda 3 months before 9/11, but Bush dismissed Clark's concerns as Bush was busy planning the invasion of Iraq in June 2001. -- Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of $500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract. |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article ,
Gunner wrote: On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:08:02 -0500, Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. Did you see the recent ABC News report on this? http://www.intelligencesummit.org/ne...s/JL010606.php Btw..according to the original translators..ABC "softened" the content of the tapes. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/156129.php It appears that the Left may have to do some belly slitting when this is over and done with. Probably not. These websites are not exactly authoritative sources, especially to the Left. Or me for that matter. (The truth or falsity of the claim is not the issue. The issue is the reliability of the source, and with sources it's guilty until proven innocent.) I think we need better sources, not just more sources. The problem with WMDs was that Saddam would soon get nuclear weapons, not that he already had them, so the administration decided to strike while they still could. Joe Gwinn |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote: "Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message ... In article . com, "rigger" wrote: Rex B wrote: Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. I've listened to the interview (available online at NPR's site), and I think the reason you got that impression is that you didn't read Pillar's article. In fact, the interview was excellent, far superior to anything you'll hear on commercial radio or television. And every "leading" question, as you would have noticed if you'd read Pillar's article, was drawn directly from what he said in that article. What Terry Gross faced was a fairly phlegmatic Pillar, and what she did about it was what any really good interviewer would do: go through the list of points that he made in his article, and ask him to explain them. I just finished reading the article, which is six pages long. In the interview, there were many echoes of the article. It's one thing for Pillar to make his points. He is the interviewee. It's quite another for the interviewer to keep framing all questions with a loaded phrase or two. It doesn't matter if the loaded phrase is right or wrong. It's not the interviewer's place to say such things during an interview. If she wants to express herself, she is free to write her own opinion piece. If she had simply asked Pillar to explain each point, I would not have had this reaction. The issue is job description, not politics. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. Maybe you listened to a different interview. g It's also clear that you must have listened with enormous bias going in, because I don't believe any reasonable person (unless he didn't know what Pillar had said, and what was noteworthy and worth expanding upon in an interview) would have concluded that Pillar was being "led" in any direction except the one he had laid out in his own words. As I said in my original posting, I don't think that Terry was able to lead Pillar anywhere he didn't want to go, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. Accused of "enormous bias". Hmm. This is basically an ad hominem argument. I have an idea. Whenever you accuse me of bias, automatically insert the standard reply "You're one too!" for me, followed by our Mothers both calling out "Sticks and stones ...". Then we can then get on with our lives, without undue waste of bandwidth. This isn't a form of argument that gets us anywhere. Alternately: My bias cancels your bias. As do our votes. Comparing the article and the interview, it appears that Pillar is a more cautious speaker than he is a writer. The point of interviewing a man like that, who wrote an article like that, is to flesh out the points he made in the article. He dragged, but he eventually came around to explaining more about what he had written. That's the product of an expert interview. The average radio or TV interviewer would have gotten nothing much out of that man. He didn't come in ready to talk on his own. He came in ready to answer questions. So, Terry did lead the witness, or at least tried, but had no choice? I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. How much do you listen to NPR? I've been listening for years, generally while driving. But your question is really directed at rigger. I think it's gone beyond "objective" being the reason for some articles. My problem with these interviews is more basic. I'm not sure is the core problem is bias so much as simple lack of interviewing skills. Maybe it's both. Some of these interviewers seem incapable of letting an interviewee answer a question. What are you comparing them with? I don't see what that has to do with it. And I've had the same problem with interviews of musicians, so the issue isn't simply that I disagree with the interviewer. They just talk too much, and often put words into the interviewee's mouth. As I said, I think it's at the very least a skill issue. Pattern: First, the long question, complete with two or three leading answers proposed by the interviewer. In this case, the answers were those supplied by Pillar in his article. In this case, having read the article, I mostly agree that she wasn't taking him anywhere he didn't want to go. But the audience cannot know that, as most of them will never read the article. Then a short answer. Most interviewees don't question the the assumptions of the question, probably from politeness, so we are really hearing what the interviewer thinks, not what the interviewee thinks. It's very frustrating - I wanted to know what the interviewee thinks, but he hardly gets a word in edgewise. He never spoke more than a few words without a question, and he never said anything until he was reminded what he had written. That's being phlegmatic -- an interviewer's nightmare. g We don't actually know that he would not have given fine answers to neutral get-him-talking questions, because no such questions were attempted. Look at this earlier comment: On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. WHOAH! He said nothing of the kind. Here's what he actually said, in a quote from his own article: Sure he did, on page one for that matter: "At the same time, an acrimonious and highly partisan debate broke out over whether the Bush administration manipulated and misused intelligence in making its case for war. The administration defended itself by pointing out that it was not alone in its view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and active weapons programs, however mistaken that view may have been. In this regard, the Bush administration was quite right: its perception of Saddam's weapons capacities was shared by the Clinton administration, congressional Democrats, and most other Western governments and intelligence services." The above (which immediately preceded your quote) clearly says that just about everybody thought that Saddam had WMDs. He also says the same thing during the interview. I think we can declare the point settled. "But in making this defense, the White House also inadvertently pointed out the real problem: intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs did not drive its decision to go to war. " "A view broadly held in the United States and even more so overseas was that deterrence of Iraq was working, that Saddam was being kept "in his box," and that the best way to deal with the weapons problem was through an aggressive inspections program to supplement the sanctions already in place. That the administration arrived at so different a policy solution indicates that its decision to topple Saddam was driven by other factors -- namely, the desire to shake up the sclerotic power structures of the Middle East and hasten the spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region. "If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath." The "dispute" as you put it was between the Bush administration and the rest of the world -- including the US's own intelligence community. As I said, the US and Europe came to different conclusions as to the likelihood that Saddam would actually use his weapons. My point was that it is a non sequitur to conclude that because Europe and the US came to different conclusions on this issue, that the issue cannot be the reason that the US chose to invade. We should recall that of the world's tyrants, only Saddam had invaded two neighbors, used poison gas on both Iranians and the Kurds, and continued to make menacing moves and words. So, one would tend to take him at his word. I don't doubt that shaking up the Middle East was another reason (President Bush has said as much in public), but Mr Pillar has not proven that it was the *only* reason. And the non-sequitur weakens his argument; one assumes if he had a better argument, we would have heard it by now. Pillar continues his point: "The Bush administration deviated from the professional standard not only in using policy to drive intelligence, but also in aggressively using intelligence to win public support for its decision to go to war. This meant selectively adducing data -- "cherry-picking" -- rather than using the intelligence community's own analytic judgments. In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments." You should have kept on quoting: "In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments. In an August 2002 speech, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney observed that "intelligence is an uncertain business" and noted how intelligence analysts had underestimated how close Iraq had been to developing a nuclear weapon before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. His conclusion -- at odds with that of the intelligence community -- was that "many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon." In other words, the Intel guys blew it in 1991, and so were disbelieved in 2002. Pillar's article can only be read as an indictment of the way the Bush administration ignored the available intelligence, and as a confirmation that the decision had been made to go to war before the intelligence was even consulted. As Pillar said in his NPR interview, everyone in the intelligence community knew, by May of 2002, that the administration had already decided to go to war. So did I, from reading the newspapers. As I said, given the logistics, the decision would have to be 9-12 months in advance. In the first gulf war, it took us six months to stand up the invasion force used to free Kuwait. The only purpose intelligence served was to support the decision that had already been made. One can read it that way, but one can also read it a bit differently. When I was reading Pillar's article, it struck me as a bit of a Pearl-Harbor memo. The intel community had a very basic problem - they had blown their credibility in the first gulf war, and the policymakers no longer cared what the intel people thought. That's one reason that policymakers didn't buy what the intel folk were saying. Another thing that struck me in the latter half of the article was that by Pillar's description, the intel community is rather too fragile to survive in the real world, or to be at all useful when the crunch comes. I don't actually believe this to be true, and it's not going to happen that the CIA will become a totally insulated agency like the Federal Reserve. Joe Gwinn |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
... In article , "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message ... In article . com, "rigger" wrote: Rex B wrote: Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. I've listened to the interview (available online at NPR's site), and I think the reason you got that impression is that you didn't read Pillar's article. In fact, the interview was excellent, far superior to anything you'll hear on commercial radio or television. And every "leading" question, as you would have noticed if you'd read Pillar's article, was drawn directly from what he said in that article. What Terry Gross faced was a fairly phlegmatic Pillar, and what she did about it was what any really good interviewer would do: go through the list of points that he made in his article, and ask him to explain them. I just finished reading the article, which is six pages long. In the interview, there were many echoes of the article. It's one thing for Pillar to make his points. He is the interviewee. It's quite another for the interviewer to keep framing all questions with a loaded phrase or two. It doesn't matter if the loaded phrase is right or wrong. I don't agree. It's Pillar's job to clarify both the perspective and the details. It's the interviewer's job to get him to support what he said, or not, if he can't support it, in the article that provoked the interview in the first place. This is not Pillar's show. This is NPR's show, and it's their responsibility to get something out of Pillar that's illuminating, beyond what his article said. If he doesn't have the goods, then it's NPR's job to make that clear. If he does, then the purpose of the interview is to prove it. You have to force him into corners where he has to put up or shut up. That's what Terry did. It's not the interviewer's place to say such things during an interview. If she wants to express herself, she is free to write her own opinion piece. If she had simply asked Pillar to explain each point, I would not have had this reaction. The issue is job description, not politics. It would be tedious to examine every point, but I don't think she was "expressing herself." What she was doing was pushing Pillar to explain himself. That she did. His article was an indictment. Everyone who has read it and commented upon it, that I have seen, agrees on that point. That's why it is news. If Pillar is going to back off from that position, it should be exposed. He has to be pushed to see where the limits of his claims actually lie. That, Terry did as well. Her job is not to defend the administration. Her job, as is that of all journalists, is to challenge authority, not to defend it. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. Maybe you listened to a different interview. g It's also clear that you must have listened with enormous bias going in, because I don't believe any reasonable person (unless he didn't know what Pillar had said, and what was noteworthy and worth expanding upon in an interview) would have concluded that Pillar was being "led" in any direction except the one he had laid out in his own words. As I said in my original posting, I don't think that Terry was able to lead Pillar anywhere he didn't want to go, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. Well, you may dislike the style. I would like to see where an interview conducted according to your preferences would have led. My guess is that it would have spiraled down into vacuous equivocation. Equivocation is not the purpose of radio interviews. Sharp, incisive revelation of the subject at hand is the purpose. You don't get a result like that by letting a phlegmatic interviewee like Pillar wind himself down like a clock. You have to keep winding him up. Accused of "enormous bias". Hmm. This is basically an ad hominem argument. I have an idea. Whenever you accuse me of bias, automatically insert the standard reply "You're one too!" for me, followed by our Mothers both calling out "Sticks and stones ...". Then we can then get on with our lives, without undue waste of bandwidth. This isn't a form of argument that gets us anywhere. That's an argument akin to saying that the proper balance is between two sides of any issue, whether one of them is accurate or not. It doesn't fly. If you feel my perspective is biased, you're free to explain your point of view. Mine is that you can't claim that Pillar was "led" in a biased interview without believing that his equivocations to be the important subject. They are NOT the subject. His quite direct, accusatory assertions ARE the subject. His equivocations are rhetorical noise. And to expect his equivocations to get equal time, in an interview in which he's expected to explain the rather direct accusations that he's made, is to prefer the caveats to the thrust of his argument. His article, Joseph, was a fairly strong indictment. Again, that is the news, that is the subject. That he couched it with the rhetorical devices common to policy-journal articles is not the news. The question, and the news, revolves around whether his essential accusations are accurate and whether he can defend them in an interview. If he backed off from Gross's questions that provoked a clarification or documentation with examples, then the news would be that he's not willing to defend what he wrote. He has to be pushed into that corner. He's made serious accusations. The job of the interviewer is not to give him cover. It's to see if he's really up to what he's claimed, to see what the substance of his argument is. And it's to give him an opportunity to clarify anything he said that may be misleading or incomplete. That chance he was given. In a few cases, he employed the bureaucrat's tendency to cover his ass. But for the most part, he re-asserted them, in some cases more strongly, under provocation from the interviewer. That's what such an interview is all about, or is supposed to be. We see it done right all too seldom. Alternately: My bias cancels your bias. As do our votes. Again, if you want to make a case for my bias, feel free to do so. My bias is mostly toward the things I've been trained to do as a writer and an editor: to put the son of a bitch on the ropes and make him explain himself. Comparing the article and the interview, it appears that Pillar is a more cautious speaker than he is a writer. The point of interviewing a man like that, who wrote an article like that, is to flesh out the points he made in the article. He dragged, but he eventually came around to explaining more about what he had written. That's the product of an expert interview. The average radio or TV interviewer would have gotten nothing much out of that man. He didn't come in ready to talk on his own. He came in ready to answer questions. So, Terry did lead the witness, or at least tried, but had no choice? The "leading" a journalist is responsible to do, as I've said, is toward a confrontation with the statements and implications that brought the interviewee into the studio in the first place. The job of the interviewer is not to give the interviewee a forum for covering his butt. I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. How much do you listen to NPR? I've been listening for years, generally while driving. But your question is really directed at rigger. I've been listening for years, too, while driving, and otherwise. I don't see any evidence of a change in NPR's approach to interviews or to the news. They've been steady at the helm for a few decades now. I think it's gone beyond "objective" being the reason for some articles. My problem with these interviews is more basic. I'm not sure is the core problem is bias so much as simple lack of interviewing skills. Maybe it's both. Some of these interviewers seem incapable of letting an interviewee answer a question. What are you comparing them with? I don't see what that has to do with it. And I've had the same problem with interviews of musicians, so the issue isn't simply that I disagree with the interviewer. They just talk too much, and often put words into the interviewee's mouth. As I said, I think it's at the very least a skill issue. If you have a good idea about what superior interviewing skills might be, it would be interesting to hear them. I have been interviewing people for close to 30 years, for print publication and for quotes for presentations. It's not an easy skill. Hardly anyone I've ever known is better at it than the old-timers at NPR. Rather than mince around, let me explain what I see going on here. Most people want journalists to cater to their points of view. THAT'S NOT THEIR JOB. Their job, as Thomas Jefferson alluded to over 200 years ago, is to question power, to question authority. Since power in the US tends to equate with money and business, that means that the job is to put money's feet to the fire. To the degree that politicians are in bed with money, it means putting their feet to the fire, too. That means questioning and challenging the established power and authority, which stems from economic power and political manipulations. Economic power in the US tends to be in the hands of the conservative establishment. Thus, journalists' primary job, in a republic such as ours, is to question and challenge the establishment. It's done far too seldom. Pillar wrote an article that challenges the establishment point of view. If there's anything to it, it's journalists' job to clarify it, to highlight the argument, if it has substance. That's part of the process of challenging the establishment. If he has something to contribute, they should be shining a light on it. If there is no challenge to established power, it's not journalism's job to do PR for the establishment. They do that quite well on their own. That's not journalism's business. Pattern: First, the long question, complete with two or three leading answers proposed by the interviewer. In this case, the answers were those supplied by Pillar in his article. In this case, having read the article, I mostly agree that she wasn't taking him anywhere he didn't want to go. But the audience cannot know that, as most of them will never read the article. Then the audience doesn't know what the interview is about. It is NOT about an explication of Pillar's article. It's about whether the thrust of the article can stand scrutiny. The article is public record. It's the whole reason for the interview. Then a short answer. Most interviewees don't question the the assumptions of the question, probably from politeness, so we are really hearing what the interviewer thinks, not what the interviewee thinks. It's very frustrating - I wanted to know what the interviewee thinks, but he hardly gets a word in edgewise. Then you should have read the article. He never spoke more than a few words without a question, and he never said anything until he was reminded what he had written. That's being phlegmatic -- an interviewer's nightmare. g We don't actually know that he would not have given fine answers to neutral get-him-talking questions, because no such questions were attempted. He can write another article if he wants the nuances of his thoughts to be handled as *he* wants them handled. And that, too, should be scrutinized, if it amounts to an accusation, as his first one was. Look at this earlier comment: On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. WHOAH! He said nothing of the kind. Here's what he actually said, in a quote from his own article: Sure he did, on page one for that matter: "At the same time, an acrimonious and highly partisan debate broke out over whether the Bush administration manipulated and misused intelligence in making its case for war. The administration defended itself by pointing out that it was not alone in its view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and active weapons programs, however mistaken that view may have been. In this regard, the Bush administration was quite right: its perception of Saddam's weapons capacities was shared by the Clinton administration, congressional Democrats, and most other Western governments and intelligence services." The above (which immediately preceded your quote) clearly says that just about everybody thought that Saddam had WMDs. He also says the same thing during the interview. I think we can declare the point settled. That isn't the point that I was challenging. Of course, anyone who follows this issue knows that most people, including the intelligence establishment, thought Saddam had WMDs. The point I take issue with is your conclusion: that there was an actual dispute over whether Saddam would use them. There was no such dispute. There was the opinion of the experts around the world, including the US intelligence community, and there was the Bush administration, ignoring that opinion. You've taken a rhetorical device used in Pillar's very formally constructed article and you let it lie there, as if that was his conclusion. It was NOT his conclusion. His conclusion was the points I quoted: that the Bush administration ignored the analysis, ignored the general consensus that containment was working, and went off on its own tangent. Rhetorical style usually requires granting the minor points of your opposition before bringing down the hammer. You ignored the hammer, and implied that the rhetorical fillip was the conclusion. Not so. As I said, the US and Europe came to different conclusions as to the likelihood that Saddam would actually use his weapons. No, it wasn't the "US and Europe" that came to different conclusions. It was the world, plus the US intelligence establishment, versus a few neocons in the US administration. Pillar makes that point clearly. So does practically everyone else who isn't in the orbit of the current US administration. My point was that it is a non sequitur to conclude that because Europe and the US came to different conclusions on this issue, that the issue cannot be the reason that the US chose to invade. Nobody said that it was. Pillar did not say that it was. Pillar said that the knowledgable intelligence community, throughout the western world, knew that there was no substance to the US administration's claims that "intelligence" was indicating that Saddam was a threat that couldn't be contained. Nearly everyone else in the world looked at the evidence and saw that he WAS being contained. That included the US intelligence community. That was Pillar's point. We should recall that of the world's tyrants, only Saddam had invaded two neighbors, used poison gas on both Iranians and the Kurds, and continued to make menacing moves and words. So, one would tend to take him at his word. Nobody was taking Saddam at his word. The intelligence community was looking at his capabilities, his non-relationship with Al Qaida, and concluded that he did not have the capabilities or the relationships to do what Bush was claiming was an imminent threat. I don't doubt that shaking up the Middle East was another reason (President Bush has said as much in public), but Mr Pillar has not proven that it was the *only* reason. And the non-sequitur weakens his argument; one assumes if he had a better argument, we would have heard it by now. Bush sold the American public on the idea that Saddam was an imminent threat, that he was months away from having a nuclear bomb, and that he had relationships with Al Qaida that would lead to the use of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons by terrorists, on our soil. Pillar said that no legitimate intelligence indicated that, and that no analysts were concluding such a thing. That's all he said. And his argument is a strong one. Pillar continues his point: "The Bush administration deviated from the professional standard not only in using policy to drive intelligence, but also in aggressively using intelligence to win public support for its decision to go to war. This meant selectively adducing data -- "cherry-picking" -- rather than using the intelligence community's own analytic judgments. In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments." You should have kept on quoting: "In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments. In an August 2002 speech, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney observed that "intelligence is an uncertain business" and noted how intelligence analysts had underestimated how close Iraq had been to developing a nuclear weapon before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. His conclusion -- at odds with that of the intelligence community -- was that "many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon." In other words, the Intel guys blew it in 1991, and so were disbelieved in 2002. But you missed the point that Cheney had NO REASON at all to believe what he said. None. Nada. No intelligence, no evidence. Pillar made the precise point: Bush and the administration had nothing except the desire to destroy Saddam for any reason he could imagine. Pillar's article can only be read as an indictment of the way the Bush administration ignored the available intelligence, and as a confirmation that the decision had been made to go to war before the intelligence was even consulted. As Pillar said in his NPR interview, everyone in the intelligence community knew, by May of 2002, that the administration had already decided to go to war. So did I, from reading the newspapers. As I said, given the logistics, the decision would have to be 9-12 months in advance. In the first gulf war, it took us six months to stand up the invasion force used to free Kuwait. But that isn't what Bush said. If your conclusion was right, Bush was either an idiot or a liar. Right? The only purpose intelligence served was to support the decision that had already been made. One can read it that way, but one can also read it a bit differently. When I was reading Pillar's article, it struck me as a bit of a Pearl-Harbor memo. The intel community had a very basic problem - they had blown their credibility in the first gulf war, and the policymakers no longer cared what the intel people thought. That's one reason that policymakers didn't buy what the intel folk were saying. The point is, the policymakers had no reason to believe anything else, except their own imaginations. They intentionally ignored and hid the concerns coming from the intelligence community. Pillar was in charge of some of them. He knew how the administration was mishandling the analysis. Another thing that struck me in the latter half of the article was that by Pillar's description, the intel community is rather too fragile to survive in the real world, or to be at all useful when the crunch comes. I don't actually believe this to be true, and it's not going to happen that the CIA will become a totally insulated agency like the Federal Reserve. He said the intel community can be undermined by politics and the policymakers, as they were in this case. That appears to be the nature of independent sources of information and analysis throughout governments everywhere. Our own Federal Reserve would be useless if it was as subject to the political policy establishment as our intelligence community is. It needs something to shield it from policy directives, or we wind up with policy driving the attention of intelligence and the very kind of screw-up we just experienced. I think his central point stands up to both reason and experience. -- Ed Huntress |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On 18 Feb 2006 20:10:15 GMT, Bruce Barnett
wrote: Joseph Gwinn writes: One thing that struck me is that Mr Pillar said that the decision to invade was a forgone conclusion something like six to nine months before the invasion, speaking as if this were a now-it-can-be-told revelation. But I had gathered this from the newspapers at the time, and given the logistics of projecting force to the other side of the world, it could be no other way, so I don't know what his point was. Perhaps the article is clearer. Wesley Clark said the same thing in his book. He was the one who warned Bush about Al Qaeda 3 months before 9/11, but Bush dismissed Clark's concerns as Bush was busy planning the invasion of Iraq in June 2001. This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? His credibility on so many levels is rated in the minus numbers. Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 19:44:57 -0500, Joseph Gwinn
wrote: As I said, the US and Europe came to different conclusions as to the likelihood that Saddam would actually use his weapons. By Europe..one assumes you mean France and Germany? The two countries with the deepest covert business association with Saddam? Or are you refering to the UK? Who is in Iraq with us..if you hadnt noticed. Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIAofficer
Gunner writes:
On 18 Feb 2006 20:10:15 GMT, Bruce Barnett wrote: This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? Are you talking about this urban legend? http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp -- Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of $500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract. |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIAofficer
Gunner writes:
This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? His credibility on so many levels is rated in the minus numbers. Gunner Well, let's talk about credibility, shall we? Where WAS the link between Al-Qaeda and the Iragi government before the invasion? And WHERE are those weapons of mass destruction? Where are those mobile vans that can generate biological attacks? Where are those aluminum missle tubes used for nuclear weapons? And let's not forget that Bush claimed the war was won after 7 days. Is THAT credible? If the President is going to start a war that costs 2 trillion dollars, shouldn't he have CREDIBLE evidence? He was responsible for GATHERING the evidence that started the war. -- Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of $500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract. |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"Bruce Barnett" wrote in message
... Gunner writes: On 18 Feb 2006 20:10:15 GMT, Bruce Barnett wrote: This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? Are you talking about this urban legend? http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp What are you trying to do, Bruce, confuse Gunner's lip-smacking delusions with facts? d8-) -- Ed Huntress |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article ,
Gunner wrote: On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 19:44:57 -0500, Joseph Gwinn wrote: As I said, the US and Europe came to different conclusions as to the likelihood that Saddam would actually use his weapons. By Europe..one assumes you mean France and Germany? The two countries with the deepest covert business association with Saddam? Or are you refering to the UK? Who is in Iraq with us..if you hadnt noticed. The UK keeps on saying that they are European, but convince nobody? I'll believe it when the Pound gives way to the Euro. Anyway, I did mean the French and the Germans. Joe Gwinn |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote: "Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message ... In article , "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message ... In article . com, "rigger" wrote: Rex B wrote: Joseph Gwinn wrote: On NPR I yesterday (the 16th) heard an interview of Frank Pillar, who retired from a high post at the CIA a year or two ago, and published a piece in the current [March-April 2006] issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The interviewer hewed to the mantra about the administration ignoring and/or misusing intelligence information, repeating her phrase many times, but Mr Pillar always answered diplomatically with a nuance-filled reply, but didn't confront the assumptions built into her question either. I've listened to the interview (available online at NPR's site), and I think the reason you got that impression is that you didn't read Pillar's article. In fact, the interview was excellent, far superior to anything you'll hear on commercial radio or television. And every "leading" question, as you would have noticed if you'd read Pillar's article, was drawn directly from what he said in that article. What Terry Gross faced was a fairly phlegmatic Pillar, and what she did about it was what any really good interviewer would do: go through the list of points that he made in his article, and ask him to explain them. I just finished reading the article, which is six pages long. In the interview, there were many echoes of the article. It's one thing for Pillar to make his points. He is the interviewee. It's quite another for the interviewer to keep framing all questions with a loaded phrase or two. It doesn't matter if the loaded phrase is right or wrong. I don't agree. It's Pillar's job to clarify both the perspective and the details. It's the interviewer's job to get him to support what he said, or not, if he can't support it, in the article that provoked the interview in the first place. This is not Pillar's show. This is NPR's show, and it's their responsibility to get something out of Pillar that's illuminating, beyond what his article said. If he doesn't have the goods, then it's NPR's job to make that clear. If he does, then the purpose of the interview is to prove it. You have to force him into corners where he has to put up or shut up. That's what Terry did. Well, I agree that an interviewer should ask some sharp questions, but I don't agree that this requires loaded questions. In either direction. It's not the interviewer's place to say such things during an interview. If she wants to express herself, she is free to write her own opinion piece. If she had simply asked Pillar to explain each point, I would not have had this reaction. The issue is job description, not politics. It would be tedious to examine every point, but I don't think she was "expressing herself." What she was doing was pushing Pillar to explain himself. That she did. I don't agree, but we are going in circles here. His article was an indictment. Everyone who has read it and commented upon it, that I have seen, agrees on that point. That's why it is news. If Pillar is going to back off from that position, it should be exposed. He has to be pushed to see where the limits of his claims actually lie. That, Terry did as well. Her job is not to defend the administration. Her job, as is that of all journalists, is to challenge authority, not to defend it. Did it again. First, we hear that the questions were not biased, then we hear that it was biased in service of a higher calling. Can't have it both ways. If this had been a court proceeding, the interviewer would have been slapped down for biased phrasing and for attempting to lead the witness. But Mr Pillar didn't bite, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. Maybe you listened to a different interview. g It's also clear that you must have listened with enormous bias going in, because I don't believe any reasonable person (unless he didn't know what Pillar had said, and what was noteworthy and worth expanding upon in an interview) would have concluded that Pillar was being "led" in any direction except the one he had laid out in his own words. As I said in my original posting, I don't think that Terry was able to lead Pillar anywhere he didn't want to go, so it was more an annoyance than a problem. Well, you may dislike the style. I would like to see where an interview conducted according to your preferences would have led. My guess is that it would have spiraled down into vacuous equivocation. Equivocation is not the purpose of radio interviews. Sharp, incisive revelation of the subject at hand is the purpose. You don't get a result like that by letting a phlegmatic interviewee like Pillar wind himself down like a clock. You have to keep winding him up. The thing that strikes me about this is that you don't seem to see the problem with loaded words, alternately denying that the words are loaded and saying that they are necessary to get the interviewee to talk. I would submit that it's difficult to make a persuasive counterargument to a position that one does not understand well enough to summarize fairly, summarize well enough that an opponent would agree was correct. Given that understanding, phrasing sharp questions that are not at the same time loaded one way or another becomes possible. Accused of "enormous bias". Hmm. This is basically an ad hominem argument. I have an idea. Whenever you accuse me of bias, automatically insert the standard reply "You're one too!" for me, followed by our Mothers both calling out "Sticks and stones ...". Then we can then get on with our lives, without undue waste of bandwidth. This isn't a form of argument that gets us anywhere. That's an argument akin to saying that the proper balance is between two sides of any issue, whether one of them is accurate or not. It doesn't fly. No, not at all. It matters not one wit if the accusation is true or false. I'm saying only that ad hominem arguments are not particularly persuasive, but are pretty time-consuming. And tend to degenerate into pointless flamewars. If you feel my perspective is biased, you're free to explain your point of view. Mine is that you can't claim that Pillar was "led" in a biased interview without believing that his equivocations to be the important subject. They are NOT the subject. His quite direct, accusatory assertions ARE the subject. His equivocations are rhetorical noise. And to expect his equivocations to get equal time, in an interview in which he's expected to explain the rather direct accusations that he's made, is to prefer the caveats to the thrust of his argument. The accusation of enormous bias was against me, not Mr Pillar, so I fail to see the relevance. Nor did I accuse Mr Pillar of bias. Error perhaps, but not bias. His article, Joseph, was a fairly strong indictment. Again, that is the news, that is the subject. That he couched it with the rhetorical devices common to policy-journal articles is not the news. The question, and the news, revolves around whether his essential accusations are accurate and whether he can defend them in an interview. If he backed off from Gross's questions that provoked a clarification or documentation with examples, then the news would be that he's not willing to defend what he wrote. He has to be pushed into that corner. He's made serious accusations. The job of the interviewer is not to give him cover. It's to see if he's really up to what he's claimed, to see what the substance of his argument is. I certainly agree here. My complaint against Terry Gross is one of technique, not objective. Sharp questions need not be loaded. And it's to give him an opportunity to clarify anything he said that may be misleading or incomplete. That chance he was given. In a few cases, he employed the bureaucrat's tendency to cover his ass. But for the most part, he re-asserted them, in some cases more strongly, under provocation from the interviewer. That's what such an interview is all about, or is supposed to be. We see it done right all too seldom. Right. He did stand behind his article, on all points. Alternately: My bias cancels your bias. As do our votes. Again, if you want to make a case for my bias, feel free to do so. My bias is mostly toward the things I've been trained to do as a writer and an editor: to put the son of a bitch on the ropes and make him explain himself. Finding the man without bias is right up there with going around with a lantern seeking an honest man. We are all too human, and we all have our biases and blind spots. Even writers and editors are human. I think it's gone beyond "objective" being the reason for some articles. My problem with these interviews is more basic. I'm not sure is the core problem is bias so much as simple lack of interviewing skills. Maybe it's both. Some of these interviewers seem incapable of letting an interviewee answer a question. What are you comparing them with? I don't see what that has to do with it. And I've had the same problem with interviews of musicians, so the issue isn't simply that I disagree with the interviewer. They just talk too much, and often put words into the interviewee's mouth. As I said, I think it's at the very least a skill issue. If you have a good idea about what superior interviewing skills might be, it would be interesting to hear them. I have been interviewing people for close to 30 years, for print publication and for quotes for presentations. It's not an easy skill. Hardly anyone I've ever known is better at it than the old-timers at NPR. It's been a while. Christopher Lyeden (sp?) of The Connection (before he got into the tangle with the then manager of the local Boston NPR station (FM 90.1)) is pretty good. He was on the street for a few years, and is now back with a radio show called "Open Source" on a different station (FM 89.7?). Unfortunately, it isn't on when I'm driving most of the time, so I usually miss it. Rather than mince around, let me explain what I see going on here. Most people want journalists to cater to their points of view. THAT'S NOT THEIR JOB. Their job, as Thomas Jefferson alluded to over 200 years ago, is to question power, to question authority. Since power in the US tends to equate with money and business, that means that the job is to put money's feet to the fire. To the degree that politicians are in bed with money, it means putting their feet to the fire, too. That means questioning and challenging the established power and authority, which stems from economic power and political manipulations. Economic power in the US tends to be in the hands of the conservative establishment. Thus, journalists' primary job, in a republic such as ours, is to question and challenge the establishment. It's done far too seldom. Be careful. Journalism is not a Mission from God, and journalists are neither omniscient nor inerrant. Pillar wrote an article that challenges the establishment point of view. If there's anything to it, it's journalists' job to clarify it, to highlight the argument, if it has substance. That's part of the process of challenging the establishment. If he has something to contribute, they should be shining a light on it. If there is no challenge to established power, it's not journalism's job to do PR for the establishment. They do that quite well on their own. That's not journalism's business. Agree on the general objective, but not necessarily on the means. Pattern: First, the long question, complete with two or three leading answers proposed by the interviewer. In this case, the answers were those supplied by Pillar in his article. In this case, having read the article, I mostly agree that she wasn't taking him anywhere he didn't want to go. But the audience cannot know that, as most of them will never read the article. Then the audience doesn't know what the interview is about. It is NOT about an explication of Pillar's article. It's about whether the thrust of the article can stand scrutiny. The article is public record. It's the whole reason for the interview. Huh? Of course they don't know what it's about - they never read the article. And when I went to the bookstore to get "the current issue", I came up empty-handed, as the current issue was too new to be on the shelves. I was saved when Sphero posted the URL. He never spoke more than a few words without a question, and he never said anything until he was reminded what he had written. That's being phlegmatic -- an interviewer's nightmare. g We don't actually know that he would not have given fine answers to neutral get-him-talking questions, because no such questions were attempted. He can write another article if he wants the nuances of his thoughts to be handled as *he* wants them handled. And that, too, should be scrutinized, if it amounts to an accusation, as his first one was. True enough, but how is this an answer to my point? Look at this earlier comment: On the matter of WMDs, Mr Pillar did say that at the time just before the invasion, there was a worldwide consensus of intelligence agencies that Iraq did have WMDs; the only dispute was over the likelihood that Saddam would use them. WHOAH! He said nothing of the kind. Here's what he actually said, in a quote from his own article: Sure he did, on page one for that matter: "At the same time, an acrimonious and highly partisan debate broke out over whether the Bush administration manipulated and misused intelligence in making its case for war. The administration defended itself by pointing out that it was not alone in its view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and active weapons programs, however mistaken that view may have been. In this regard, the Bush administration was quite right: its perception of Saddam's weapons capacities was shared by the Clinton administration, congressional Democrats, and most other Western governments and intelligence services." The above (which immediately preceded your quote) clearly says that just about everybody thought that Saddam had WMDs. He also says the same thing during the interview. I think we can declare the point settled. That isn't the point that I was challenging. Of course, anyone who follows this issue knows that most people, including the intelligence establishment, thought Saddam had WMDs. Could you help me here? I don't know how else to interpret "WHOAH! He said nothing of the kind". The point I take issue with is your conclusion: that there was an actual dispute over whether Saddam would use them. There was no such dispute. There was the opinion of the experts around the world, including the US intelligence community, and there was the Bush administration, ignoring that opinion. No, I didn't say that the Intel community thought that Saddam would use his WMDs. I said that the dispute was between governments, specifically those of the US and those of France and Germany. Mr Pillar is saying that the US administration should have listened to the intel community. Later he admits that the intel community blew it in 1991, and so were having some trouble with credibility in 2002, three years later. Politicians judge each other's intentions all the time, and intel is only one input. This time, the US administration judged that the intel folk were wrong, judged that based on past behaviour, Saddam was likely to use whatever weapons came to hand. You've taken a rhetorical device used in Pillar's very formally constructed article and you let it lie there, as if that was his conclusion. It was NOT his conclusion. His conclusion was the points I quoted: that the Bush administration ignored the analysis, ignored the general consensus that containment was working, and went off on its own tangent. Rhetorical style usually requires granting the minor points of your opposition before bringing down the hammer. You ignored the hammer, and implied that the rhetorical fillip was the conclusion. Not so. Huh? As I said, the US and Europe came to different conclusions as to the likelihood that Saddam would actually use his weapons. No, it wasn't the "US and Europe" that came to different conclusions. It was the world, plus the US intelligence establishment, versus a few neocons in the US administration. Pillar makes that point clearly. So does practically everyone else who isn't in the orbit of the current US administration. Well, we could go down the list. Not all of Europe agreed with the French and Germans. But it's beside my point that the disagreement does not prove that the issue disagreed about cannot have been the reason. Quite the contrary, and the disagreements were quite loud and public at the time. The French and Germans wanted to keep on trying with diplomats and sanctions, while the US had concluded that this was pointless, and that it was time for fire and sword. My point was that it is a non sequitur to conclude that because Europe and the US came to different conclusions on this issue, that the issue cannot be the reason that the US chose to invade. Nobody said that it was. Pillar did not say that it was. Pillar said that the knowledgable intelligence community, throughout the western world, knew that there was no substance to the US administration's claims that "intelligence" was indicating that Saddam was a threat that couldn't be contained. Nearly everyone else in the world looked at the evidence and saw that he WAS being contained. That included the US intelligence community. That was Pillar's point. I'm sorry, but Pillar did say exactly that, and also wrote that, so I doubt that I misheard. We should recall that of the world's tyrants, only Saddam had invaded two neighbors, used poison gas on both Iranians and the Kurds, and continued to make menacing moves and words. So, one would tend to take him at his word. Nobody was taking Saddam at his word. The intelligence community was looking at his capabilities, his non-relationship with Al Qaida, and concluded that he did not have the capabilities or the relationships to do what Bush was claiming was an imminent threat. The US administration didn't believe the Intel community on this, based on the stellar performance of intel in 1991, where they totally missed how close Iraq's atomic weapon program was to a bomb. It turned out to have been a very close call. If Saddam had held off for another year before invading Kuwait, things could have gone very differently. Presidents tend to remember such things. For a very long time. I don't doubt that shaking up the Middle East was another reason (President Bush has said as much in public), but Mr Pillar has not proven that it was the *only* reason. And the non-sequitur weakens his argument; one assumes if he had a better argument, we would have heard it by now. Bush sold the American public on the idea that Saddam was an imminent threat, that he was months away from having a nuclear bomb, and that he had relationships with Al Qaida that would lead to the use of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons by terrorists, on our soil. Pillar said that no legitimate intelligence indicated that, and that no analysts were concluding such a thing. That's all he said. And his argument is a strong one. And the US administration simply didn't believe the intel folk on this, as discussed above. Pillar continues his point: "The Bush administration deviated from the professional standard not only in using policy to drive intelligence, but also in aggressively using intelligence to win public support for its decision to go to war. This meant selectively adducing data -- "cherry-picking" -- rather than using the intelligence community's own analytic judgments. In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments." You should have kept on quoting: "In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments. In an August 2002 speech, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney observed that "intelligence is an uncertain business" and noted how intelligence analysts had underestimated how close Iraq had been to developing a nuclear weapon before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. His conclusion -- at odds with that of the intelligence community -- was that "many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon." In other words, the Intel guys blew it in 1991, and so were disbelieved in 2002. But you missed the point that Cheney had NO REASON at all to believe what he said. None. Nada. No intelligence, no evidence. Pillar made the precise point: Bush and the administration had nothing except the desire to destroy Saddam for any reason he could imagine. As I said, the administration didn't trust the intel community to get it right. And not without reason. Pillar's article can only be read as an indictment of the way the Bush administration ignored the available intelligence, and as a confirmation that the decision had been made to go to war before the intelligence was even consulted. As Pillar said in his NPR interview, everyone in the intelligence community knew, by May of 2002, that the administration had already decided to go to war. So did I, from reading the newspapers. As I said, given the logistics, the decision would have to be 9-12 months in advance. In the first gulf war, it took us six months to stand up the invasion force used to free Kuwait. But that isn't what Bush said. If your conclusion was right, Bush was either an idiot or a liar. Right? Not so fast. One can stop on a dime. What one cannot do on a dime is to whistle up an army in place and ready to go. The papers were full of getting-ready stories at the time. The only purpose intelligence served was to support the decision that had already been made. One can read it that way, but one can also read it a bit differently. When I was reading Pillar's article, it struck me as a bit of a Pearl-Harbor memo. The intel community had a very basic problem - they had blown their credibility in the first gulf war, and the policymakers no longer cared what the intel people thought. That's one reason that policymakers didn't buy what the intel folk were saying. The point is, the policymakers had no reason to believe anything else, except their own imaginations. They intentionally ignored and hid the concerns coming from the intelligence community. Pillar was in charge of some of them. He knew how the administration was mishandling the analysis. Remember, the then consensus of the intel community was that Saddam had or would soon have WMDs, and that Saddam had invaded two neighbors (Iran and Kuwait) and had already used mustard and nerve gasses on the Iranians and the Kurds. Should one then conclude that Saddam would have held back if he happened to have a nuclear weapon, despite all his talk of destroying Israel and purifying Saudi Arabia? Another thing that struck me in the latter half of the article was that by Pillar's description, the intel community is rather too fragile to survive in the real world, or to be at all useful when the crunch comes. I don't actually believe this to be true, and it's not going to happen that the CIA will become a totally insulated agency like the Federal Reserve. He said the intel community can be undermined by politics and the policymakers, as they were in this case. That appears to be the nature of independent sources of information and analysis throughout governments everywhere. Our own Federal Reserve would be useless if it was as subject to the political policy establishment as our intelligence community is. It needs something to shield it from policy directives, or we wind up with policy driving the attention of intelligence and the very kind of screw-up we just experienced. How did US political interference cause the intel agencies of the rest of the world (including France and Germany) come to the consensus that Saddam had or would soon have WMDs? I think his central point stands up to both reason and experience. It should be apparent that I wouldn't go quite that far. Joe Gwinn |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 08:09:50 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote: "Bruce Barnett" wrote in message .. . Gunner writes: On 18 Feb 2006 20:10:15 GMT, Bruce Barnett wrote: This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? Are you talking about this urban legend? http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp What are you trying to do, Bruce, confuse Gunner's lip-smacking delusions with facts? d8-) Sorry. I confused Wesley Clark with Richard Clark. Shrug. Sue me. Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On 19 Feb 2006 12:51:36 GMT, Bruce Barnett
wrote: Gunner writes: This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? His credibility on so many levels is rated in the minus numbers. Gunner Well, let's talk about credibility, shall we? Looks like we found a Wesley Clark for Prez supporter. Where WAS the link between Al-Qaeda and the Iragi government before the invasion? which one? The one between Iraqi Intelligence and Mohammed Atta? Or the one between bin Ladin himself and Saddam? Or the ones that are turning up on various tapes recently discovered? http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Inve...ory?id=1616996 (hardly a right wing conspiracy blog...) And WHERE are those weapons of mass destruction? Likely..Syria http://www.nysun.com/article/26514 Where are those mobile vans that can generate biological attacks? Where are those aluminum missle tubes used for nuclear weapons? No idea. Where is bin Ladin? Or are you claiming he didnt exist either? DB Cooper? And let's not forget that Bush claimed the war was won after 7 days. Is THAT credible? Cites???? If the President is going to start a war that costs 2 trillion dollars, shouldn't he have CREDIBLE evidence? He was responsible for GATHERING the evidence that started the war. This evidence?? "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." --President Bill Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998 "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." --President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998 "Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." --Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998 "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." --Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998 "[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by: -- Democratic Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others, Oct. 9, 1998 "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." -Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998 "Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." -- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999 "There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by: -- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), and others, Dec 5, 2001 "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them." -- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002 "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." -- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002 "The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." -- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002 "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002 "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." -- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002 "He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" -- Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002 "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." -- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." -- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002 "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." -- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003 Laugh laugh laugh Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"Gunner" wrote in message
... On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 08:09:50 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Bruce Barnett" wrote in message .. . Gunner writes: On 18 Feb 2006 20:10:15 GMT, Bruce Barnett wrote: This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? Are you talking about this urban legend? http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp What are you trying to do, Bruce, confuse Gunner's lip-smacking delusions with facts? d8-) Sorry. I confused Wesley Clark with Richard Clark. Shrug. Sue me. Gunner Oh, jeez, that must be some collection of "news" sources you have, Gunner. Maybe you shouldn't spend so much time at www.make-it-up-as-you-go-along.com. g -- Ed Huntress |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:22:26 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote: "Gunner" wrote in message .. . On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 08:09:50 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Bruce Barnett" wrote in message .. . Gunner writes: On 18 Feb 2006 20:10:15 GMT, Bruce Barnett wrote: This the same Wesley Clark that allowed the bin Ladin family to boogie right after 9-11? Are you talking about this urban legend? http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp What are you trying to do, Bruce, confuse Gunner's lip-smacking delusions with facts? d8-) Sorry. I confused Wesley Clark with Richard Clark. Shrug. Sue me. Gunner Oh, jeez, that must be some collection of "news" sources you have, Gunner. Maybe you shouldn't spend so much time at www.make-it-up-as-you-go-along.com. g So you are claiming that ABC is lying? Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIAofficer
Gunner writes:
Well, let's talk about credibility, shall we? Looks like we found a Wesley Clark for Prez supporter. Nope. Although I'd trust someone with REAL military experience to run a military operation. Where WAS the link between Al-Qaeda and the Iragi government before the invasion? which one? The one between Iraqi Intelligence and Mohammed Atta? You mean the one where Cheney debunks this? http://www.democracynow.org/article....3/09/16/168251 Or the one between bin Ladin himself and Saddam? Do you mean the one where Rumsfield questions the excistance of this relationship? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3715396.stm Or the ones that are turning up on various tapes recently discovered? http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Inve...ory?id=1616996 (hardly a right wing conspiracy blog...) You mean the one where we finally have proof that Sadam lies? And WHERE are those weapons of mass destruction? Likely..Syria http://www.nysun.com/article/26514 The CIA's Iraq Survey Group acknowledged in its September 30, 2004, "Comprehensive Report," "we cannot express a firm view on the possibility that WMD elements were relocated out of Iraq prior to the war. Reports of such actions exist, but we have not yet been able to investigate this possibility thoroughly." But when you want to start a war, who needs evidence, eh? Shoot first. Ask questions later. Where are those mobile vans that can generate biological attacks? Where are those aluminum missle tubes used for nuclear weapons? No idea. Where is bin Ladin? Or are you claiming he didnt exist either? DB Cooper? I'm talking about the "facts" Powell stated in the UN that was the reason to start the war. The FACTS that the INR evaluation marked as "WEAK" and "NOT CREDIBLE" If the President is going to start a war that costs 2 trillion dollars, shouldn't he have CREDIBLE evidence? He was responsible for GATHERING the evidence that started the war. This evidence?? [snip] First of all - I see opinion, not evidence, Did Powell use any of this "evidence" when he talked to the UN? No. I guess he didn't think much of this "evidence." I never knew Bush valued the democrat's opinion so much that he started a war based on blind-faith trust on their "evidence." -- Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of $500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract. |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"Gunner" wrote in message
... On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:22:26 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: Oh, jeez, that must be some collection of "news" sources you have, Gunner. Maybe you shouldn't spend so much time at www.make-it-up-as-you-go-along.com. g So you are claiming that ABC is lying? As for ABC, did you actually read what they said? Another dud, Gunner. You dropped the hammer on another dud. -- Ed Huntress |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
F. George McDuffee wrote: On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:51:26 -0600, Rex B wrote: I have noticed that more and more of late. For a while NPR seemed to be trying to be objective, but they don't appear to making that effort lately. ==================== Or we have been so indoctrinated that we have begun to view objective albeit contradictory points of view as subjective. In many cases it *NOT* the isolated facts, but the context and how these are connected and thus the conclusions that are the problem. I do know how to spot a conclusion not supported by facts. I can also recognize a leading question, or one that has no winning answer for the respondent. And I'm OK with different points of view. I can almost always argue both sides of a question. For an interesting experience, use the internet and see what the non-US english language papers have to say. Manchester Guardian (UK) is a good place to start. see http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/t...es/0,,,00.html I do that regularly, along with occasional SW radio broadcasts. |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On 20 Feb 2006 12:40:13 GMT, Bruce Barnett
wrote: Or the ones that are turning up on various tapes recently discovered? http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Inve...ory?id=1616996 (hardly a right wing conspiracy blog...) You mean the one where we finally have proof that Sadam lies? Interesting spin. I thought the current view was that he was a harmless fuzzy bunny and we bad Yanks attacked him for no good reason and killed his two eagle scout children? Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 08:49:47 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote: "Gunner" wrote in message .. . On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:22:26 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: Oh, jeez, that must be some collection of "news" sources you have, Gunner. Maybe you shouldn't spend so much time at www.make-it-up-as-you-go-along.com. g So you are claiming that ABC is lying? As for ABC, did you actually read what they said? Another dud, Gunner. You dropped the hammer on another dud. Cites? And did you see the program? Gunner "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3 |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"Gunner" wrote in message
... On 20 Feb 2006 12:40:13 GMT, Bruce Barnett wrote: Or the ones that are turning up on various tapes recently discovered? http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Inve...ory?id=1616996 (hardly a right wing conspiracy blog...) You mean the one where we finally have proof that Sadam lies? Interesting spin. I thought the current view was that he was a harmless fuzzy bunny and we bad Yanks attacked him for no good reason and killed his two eagle scout children? Gunner I think that was the California-wasteland interpretation, Gunner. It was repackaged for people living within a certain radius of Bakersfield. -- Ed Huntress |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Gunner" wrote in message ... On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 08:49:47 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Gunner" wrote in message ... On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:22:26 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: Oh, jeez, that must be some collection of "news" sources you have, Gunner. Maybe you shouldn't spend so much time at www.make-it-up-as-you-go-along.com. g ========================== February 20, 2006, 7:20 a.m. "He Shall Direct Thy Paths to the Weapons of Mass Destruction." The former U.N. inspector behind the "Saddam Tapes" says God revealed WMD sites to him. William Tierney, the former United Nations weapons inspector who unveiled the so-called "Saddam Tapes" at a conference in Arlington, Virginia, Saturday, told National Review Online that God directed him to weapons sites in Iraq and that his belief in the importance of one particular site was strengthened when a friend told him that she had a vision of the site in a dream. In his presentation at the so-called "Intelligence Summit," Tierney, an Arabic speaker, described how he received the "Saddam Tapes" from federal authorities last year as part of his job as a contract translator. It was supposed to be a routine assignment, but Tierney said he soon realized the tapes had special significance and decided to make them public. Tierney said he believes other tapes, which have not yet been heard, will eventually reveal that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Tierney also said that he believes Iraq orchestrated the 2001 anthrax attacks, with Saddam Hussein using American scientist Steven Hatfill as a "proxy" to carry out the mission. ============================ "And the nutbags, go rolling, along..." (with Gunner in tow g) Man oh Man. I've been working too hard Ed. Hadn't seen this but if I had I'd have poked around. Who says you can't find good comedy these days! -- John R. Carroll Machining Solution Software, Inc. Los Angeles San Francisco www.machiningsolution.com |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
om... Ed Huntress wrote: "Gunner" wrote in message ... On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 08:49:47 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Gunner" wrote in message ... On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:22:26 -0500, "Ed Huntress" wrote: Oh, jeez, that must be some collection of "news" sources you have, Gunner. Maybe you shouldn't spend so much time at www.make-it-up-as-you-go-along.com. g ========================== February 20, 2006, 7:20 a.m. "He Shall Direct Thy Paths to the Weapons of Mass Destruction." The former U.N. inspector behind the "Saddam Tapes" says God revealed WMD sites to him. William Tierney, the former United Nations weapons inspector who unveiled the so-called "Saddam Tapes" at a conference in Arlington, Virginia, Saturday, told National Review Online that God directed him to weapons sites in Iraq and that his belief in the importance of one particular site was strengthened when a friend told him that she had a vision of the site in a dream. In his presentation at the so-called "Intelligence Summit," Tierney, an Arabic speaker, described how he received the "Saddam Tapes" from federal authorities last year as part of his job as a contract translator. It was supposed to be a routine assignment, but Tierney said he soon realized the tapes had special significance and decided to make them public. Tierney said he believes other tapes, which have not yet been heard, will eventually reveal that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Tierney also said that he believes Iraq orchestrated the 2001 anthrax attacks, with Saddam Hussein using American scientist Steven Hatfill as a "proxy" to carry out the mission. ============================ "And the nutbags, go rolling, along..." (with Gunner in tow g) Man oh Man. I've been working too hard Ed. Hadn't seen this but if I had I'd have poked around. Who says you can't find good comedy these days! Stay tuned for more from Tierney on the Timothy McVeigh/Saddam Hussein connection. It appears that they both got their Cuban cigars from the same Uzbeckistanian mole in Timbuktu. God pointed the way for Tierney, in a message encypted in a roll of Russian toilet paper. -- Ed Huntress |
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
In article , Ed Huntress says...
"Cites?" You mean, citations that nothing has come from the administration or from real news sources to support the vague, ambiguous allegations made by the right-wing blogs? In other words, you want cites of nothing? No, he wants a visit from the citey-bird. You remember, that nearly extinct bird whos call (cite-cite-cite-cite-cite!) heralds the triumphant exhibition of yet another.... Dud. Jim -- ================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ================================================== |
#36
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[OT] Un-Intelligence - Dodgy disclosures from a former CIA officer
"jim rozen" wrote in message
... In article , Ed Huntress says... "Cites?" You mean, citations that nothing has come from the administration or from real news sources to support the vague, ambiguous allegations made by the right-wing blogs? In other words, you want cites of nothing? No, he wants a visit from the citey-bird. You remember, that nearly extinct bird whos call (cite-cite-cite-cite-cite!) heralds the triumphant exhibition of yet another.... Dud. I have been up to my bird in cites today, anyway. I helped my wife with a college paper, involving three reference citations, and I'm at work on a drug dossier with over 80 of them. One more cite, and I'll start chirping along with Gunner... -- Ed Huntress |
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