Yesterday I re-posted a comment added to a Washington Post article, Lawmakers Urge Special Counsel Probe of Harsh Interrogation Tactics, by Joby Warrick.

Here is another comment I added today.

Comment on a Washington Post article:

Lawmakers Urge Special Counsel Probe of Harsh Interrogation Tactics, by Joby Warrick

Over the past week, Democrat Hillary Clinton has proclaimed her potential Republican rival John McCain to be the gold standard of wartime presidents.  But lost in Clinton's fierce barrage against Barack Obama's national security experience is the inescapable conclusion about John McCain's own suitability as Commander-in-Chief.   McCain's mistake-filled record, questionable judgment, calamitous misreading of history, nonchalance about American casualties and notorious short fuse all combine to make him a dangerous choice to lead an America at war.  Simply put, John McCain is unfit for command.

Tonight on TDS, some baseball player;  and on TCR, Colonel Lawrence Wilkersen, Colin Powell's Former Chief of Staff.

Grinder and Casper made it to the city... Kitty missed the train...

I've posted the entire Bill Maher Realtime from last night (9/7/2007)which includes a very interesting discussion with Colin Powell's former assistant Lawrence Wilkerson.
Ralph Nader has some good things to say and Cornel West and Bill Maher try to stay focused while Mos Def goes off about the state of America.

I worked with Mos Def back in 1995 on an ABC pilot called "Where's Marlowe" when his name was Dante and found him to be a very intelligent, hard-working, modest actor. He represents many Americans who just don't believe anything anymore.

JT

Last night Keith-O's latest report on Iraq did a masterful job of breaking down exactly how the administration has been pulling a giant bait and switch confidence game since before the war when George Tenet originally told George Bush - there were no WMD's based on credible sources and was ignored.  

It was "too late.  This isn't about WMD anymore - it's about Regime Change" was the answer.

Powell's former Chief of Staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, helped put together Powell's famous presentation at the UN in February 2003, just weeks before the war.

Wilkerson has come forward a number of times, and this time, he's put Impeachment investigations on the table. On CNN this weekend, Brian Todd introduces the story to Wolf by saying that "Wolf, this is the first Republican official, the first former member of the Bush Administration to publicly discuss the idea of Impeachment. Just as significant, this man was closely involved in much of the diplomatic maneuvering before the war"

Will this finally put Impeachment on the table? If this does not, what will? Will this high-level insider in the Bush administration get ingored by Congress, just like all the other whistle blowers do? It's up to you!

Video, and more, below.

Brief entry here as the show is on the air and I'm listening. Right now on NPR Lawrence Wilkerson is speaking bluntly on the radio show On Point. Ken Adelman speaking for the party really. Wilkerson has spoken clearly about the need for IMPEACHMENT!

Today on Meet the Press, exactly one week after Condoleeza Rice's whirlwind talkshow appearances and in a far less animated performance than what was shown on 60 Minutes, former CIA Director George Tenet sat down with Tim Russert and proceeded to explain just how many times he completely screwed the pooch prior to the Iraq War and how he failed to tell the President of his concerns about  our invasion of that country.

I didn't do it, Tim.  I, I did not, I did not oppose this, and to, to, to dress me up as a hero at this--I wasn't a hero here, and, and that's the record.

Well, ain't that the truth.

Wait, let me re-phrase that.

NO SHIT SHERLOCK!

But apparently now that Tenet has had a chance to calm down and refresh his meds - he actually managed to put forth a pretty good case that he honestly did the best job he could.

Almost.

That's what Henry Waxman wants to know.  He's already subpoened her, while she remains "dis-inclined" to honor that subpeona claiming that it is a "seperation of powers" issue - but since new revelations have surfaced that a state department analyst clearly identified the Niger documents as "probably a hoax" and "clearly a forgery" three months before the President's 2003 State of the Union address Rice and the State Dept have apparently blocked his access to Congressional Investigators - that view seems spurious.

It's one thing to dubiously claim that Executive Priviledge extends not simply to communications directly with the President, as has been the historical precedent, and that they now extend all the way to communications between the CIA and NSC, it's quite another to willinging obstruct a lawful Congressional Investigation by refusing to grant them access to witnesses.

It seems the Diva of Dissembling is at it yet again.

And neither was Harry Reid when he made this statement:

"The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told the National Press Club.

There are plans to attack Iran, and they aren't merely "contingency plans" that the US Military prepares for all potential adversaries, as many claim.  How do I know this?  Why is Harry Reid warning the President?  Read on ...

Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell with whom he had a falling out over his criticisms of the Bush administration, told BBC Newsnight program that "Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected." This plan, say experts, "corresponds pretty closely to what Washington is demanding from Tehran now." From BBC News's "Washington 'snubbed Iran offer'," January 18, 2007:

Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.

Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

But Vice-President Dick Cheney's office rejected the plan, [Wilkerson] said.

So, pardon (and please enlighten) me if this has been covered before, but I used the search link, and put "Lawrence Wilkerson" into the box, and the engine came up with zero matches. And I, personally, haven’t watched "NOW" (on PBS television, weekly) a lot lately due to my lack of interest in the topics they’ve come up with. But they seem to have hit a monstrous home run with their piece on the pre-war deception by the "cabal between the Vice-President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld on critical...." (James Wilkerson)

Now that Colin Powell is finally speaking out to stop the disaster that escalation would entail, it puts Colin Powell's role in disseminating the NeoCon's fabrications about Iraq to start this War into sharp focus.

It's almost four years since Colin Powell made his infamous speech to the U.N. about Iraq. A speech full of fabrications. Three days after Powell's speech I started a dissusion the London Independent's website (included there by by the Independent's web editors) anout Powell's speech titled "Powell's Deception". It became a heated discussion that lasted for many weeks.

Tonight PBS re-ran the NOW story from early 2006 on Powell's longtime Deputy Col. Wilkerson and how he became a part the "HOAX" on all of the member countries of the U.N., and American People.

Powell’s then Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson says that what he later found out shocked him: that much of Powell’s speech was false. "I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council," he says.

       

NOW

As the dawn of the 110th Congress approaches, the issue of Impeachment hangs in the air for many on the left and right. In many ways it remains a trap for which Democrats are more than a little unwilling to fall into, for if they do aggressively pursue Impeachment of President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney how could it be seen as anything but partisan payback for the last six years?

The way out of that trap is to make the evidence compelling and complete enough - and the case laid out in a stark enough manner - that the neccesity of impeachment to change the direction of this country, this war, and to hold the criminal misdeeds of the Administration to account will be plain for all those with their eyes open to see.

Thus I present part one in a multiple part series:

The Impeachment Case Against George W. Bush - Count 1 : Intelligence Fraud.   President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney did, with malice of forethought, perpetrate a fraud upon the American People and the World by deliberately suppressing the truth about Iraq's lack of WMD, and did then use those false pretenses to begin an illegal and unneccesary War of choice Aggression.

Please do NOT recommend this diary unless you think this allegation has merit.

This will be short and sweet -- Chicago Dyke was at a talk of Sid Blumenthal and Mark Greenwald. Sid stated that Lawrence Wilkerson is saying that Bush has 35,000 people imprisoned in secret jails worldwide and that only 5% have anything to do with terrorism.

I have to run, so I am making a few rules, asking a few questions, and then leaving. I make no claims one way or the other. If you think these allegations have merit, please recommend. If not, then don't. If this is debunked by the time I get back, I will delete.

I love Keith Olbermann, and I can't wait to see his takedown of Bush tonight (the midnight rebroadcast of Countdown for the West Coast). But Sidney Blumenthal is positively surgical in dissecting our true "long national nightmare." Here's a snippet to whet your appetites:

In its brazen, cold-blooded and single-minded partisanship, the Florida contest turned out in retrospect to be an augury not an aberration. It was Bush's first opening, and having charged through it, grabbing the presidency, he continued widening the breach.

Last Friday, I attended a session yesterday at the New America Foundation featuring a presentation by Thomas Ricks, the Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondent, who has been a Pentagon correspondent for the WaPo and Wall Street Journal for many years.  He is the author of the excellent new book, "Fiasco," which describes the many ways in which the operation in Iraq has been fouled up since the end of "major combat operations."  But I thought that perhaps even more interesting were the remarks made by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, US Army (Ret), Colin Powell's former chief of staff at the State Department.