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| Fifth Column |
| NYT: Don't Worry, Be Happy Intel Wanted For Nov |
| 2006-08-25 |
| I've corrected the NYT Title. Original: Wanted: Scarier Intelligence Now you'd better sit down - the spin will leave you dizzy... The last thing this country needs as it heads into this election season is another attempt to push the intelligence agencies to hype their conclusions about the threat from a Middle Eastern state. That there was a "first" one was disproven, but please, do carry on. That’s what happened in 2002, when the administration engineered a deeply flawed document on Iraq that reshaped intelligence to fit President Bush’s policy. And history appeared to be repeating itself this week, when the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, released a garishly illustrated and luridly written document that is ostensibly dedicated to “helping the American people understand” that Iran’s fundamentalist regime and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States. They don't repeat the "16 words" meme, just allude to it. Another disproven lie from the Left. As for "garish" and "lurid", I detect jealousy. That is your gig, after all. You are, ostensibly, a news organization. That a nuclear Iran poses a threat, should be apparent even to you. It’s hard to imagine that Mr. Hoekstra believes there is someone left in this country who does not already know that. But the report obviously has different aims. It is partly a campaign document, a product of the Republican strategy of scaring Americans into allowing the G.O.P. to retain control of Congress this fall. It fits with the fearmongering we’ve heard lately — like President Bush’s attempt the other day to link the Iraq war to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. More alternate universe BS mixed with obvious good sense on the part of the Pubbies. BTW, Bush said no such thing. If he had, they would've cited when and where. I've seen each and every televised Bush speech and news conference. Didn't happen. Lying liars. But even more worrisome, the report seems intended to signal the intelligence community that the Republican leadership wants scarier assessments that would justify a more confrontational approach to Tehran. It was not the work of any intelligence agency, or the full intelligence panel, or even the subcommittee that ostensibly drafted it. The Washington Post reported that it was written primarily by a former C.I.A. official known for his view that the assessments on Iran are not sufficiently dire. Pure speculation and hypocritical scare-mongering. They stand the real issue on its head: The President of the United States, wants to know the truth, not an amped-up or watered down pile of the usual half-assed political crap. You assholes want the politically-acceptable version for your political ends. While the report contains no new information, it does dish up dire-sounding innuendo, mostly to leave the impression that Iran is developing nuclear weapons a lot faster than intelligence agencies have the guts to admit. It also tosses in a few conspiracy theories, like the unsupported assertion that Iran engineered the warfare between Israel and Hezbollah. And it complains that America’s spy agencies are too cautious, that they “shy away from provocative conclusions.” If it's full of the innuendo, they learned the art from you. As for Iran and Hezb, only tools like the NYT could doubt that Hezb acts at the command of its Masters in Iran. As masterful purveyors of conspiracy theories, once again you play the hypocrite's hand of charging your opponent with your own lies and schemes. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, put it even more bluntly in explaining some Republicans’ dissatisfaction with the C.I.A. reporting on Iran: “The intelligence community is dedicated to predicting the least dangerous world possible.” Oops, how did that inconvenient truth slip in? Gee, it sounds logical and honest. All in all, this is a chilling reminder of what happened when intelligence analysts told Vice President Dick Cheney they could not prove that Iraq was building a nuclear weapon or had ties with Al Qaeda. He kept asking if they really meant it — until the C.I.A. took the hint. Another favorite meme - Evil Cheney demanding the assessment be changed. Disproven and laughable, yet repetition is the key since most people are lazy shits. It’s obvious that Iran wants nuclear weapons, has lied about its program and views America as an enemy. We enthusiastically agree that the United States needs every scrap of intelligence it can get on Iran. But the reason American intelligence is not certain when Iran might have a nuclear bomb is because the situation is so murky — not because the agencies are too wimpy to tell the scary truth. It's murky, alright, because the CIA and other agencies are full of asshole seditious agenda queens who conspire with NYT reporters in hopes of cashing in on the book and lecture circuit. Integrity has been largely jettisoned. A prudent persona should consider the real question: On which side of the wildly varying estimates should we err? If the Republicans who control Congress really wanted a full-scale assessment on the state of Iran’s weapons programs, they would have asked for one, rather than producing this brochure. Since the MSM, such as yourselves, can't be trusted to report facts, they decided to publish themselves to make sure people know what they think without your spin and BS. The nation cannot afford to pay the price again for politicians’ bending intelligence or bullying the intelligence agencies to suit their ideology. Actually, the nation can't afford to underestimate the threat, you morons. The intel is, most likely, incomplete - and only a bunch of Tranzi fuckwits would take your approach. The March of the Memes continues unabated. Die, NYT, die. |
| Posted by:Shung Phinetle2153 |
| #7 Die, NYT, die. |
| Posted by: newc 2006-08-25 18:09 |
| #6 First the shoddy “analysis” piece yesterday followed by this adolescent “opinion” piece today. Sheezus…the NYT doesn’t even pretend to be impartial anymore. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2006-08-25 15:25 |
| #5 And then he says dire-sounding innuendo, mostly to leave the impression that Iran is developing nuclear weapons a lot faster than intelligence agencies have the guts to admit. Given the history of sanguine intel assesments versus scary reality, I think it's only proper for Hoekstra to have this attitude. |
| Posted by: charger 2006-08-25 14:48 |
| #4 This is a really queer editorial. (Love the in-line commentary - no question at all what Shung Phinetle2153 thinks!) The writer says things like IranÂ’s fundamentalist regime and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States. ...ItÂ’s hard to imagine that Hoekstra believes there is someone left in this country who does not already know that. In other words, Iran is a strategic nuclear threat. And then he says dire-sounding innuendo, mostly to leave the impression that Iran is developing nuclear weapons a lot faster than intelligence agencies have the guts to admit. But by definition anything the intelligence people are aware of is less than the reality; opening the files in Eastern Europe, and in Iraq post-invasion, demonstrated conclusively that the bad guys are much further along than suspected... but that the only way to be certain is to win the war so that the analysts have all the files to examine at their leisure. Spy agencies produce probabilities, not trial-usable proof. The subtext here is that we all (including the writer) know that Iran has the ambition and enough of the stuff to be a real threat, but we absolutely mustn't do anything about it. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-08-25 14:38 |
| #3 I don't think the Times is willfully ignorant. I think they are working for the enemy. |
| Posted by: SR-71 2006-08-25 11:41 |
| #2 WTF is wrong wqith these people. Hezbollah has long been known as Iran's proxie since 1982 Even the major networks since that time has said and it has never been disproven that Iran is Hezbollah's sugar tit. It is incredible that anyone would try to press the contention that Iran being identified as a strategic threat as overblown. Iran started the whole Islam thing during the Crater years, has not backed off of it even once and is now on the verge of a using nukes and has said that it will nuke Israeli and anyone who gets in its way. NY Times is engaging in willful ignorance. And this is a dangerous path to take in the face of an armed and hostile enemy. |
| Posted by: badanov 2006-08-25 10:22 |
| #1 Keep up the good work, Pinch! I'm proud of you and the staff! |
| Posted by: The Ghost of Walter Duranty 2006-08-25 09:08 |