Flutterby™! : Iraq politics 2004-05-17 19:00:17.888736+00

Iraq politics

2004-05-17 19:00:17.888736+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

The Nation references Colin Powell talking about the WMD claims (Thanks, Dave). The NBC News' Meet The Press transcript for May 16 has this excerpt from Powell:

I'm very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully; we looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate.

So why is Powell passing the buck to the CIA when it seems like it's The Pentagon that's all buddy-buddy with Ahmad Chalabi (who seems to be the clear coordinator of the "multiple sourcing")? And while I'm no fan of Paul Bremer, how does this affect support for Bremer's struggles with the Iraqi Governing Council? Especially since another take on the oil-for-food corruption inquiry has Republican Christopher Shays taking on Bremer:

"We have serious reservations about the way the investigation [into corruption] is being handled and are awaiting the answer to a range of questions we have put to the Bush administration," Christopher Shays, a Republican Congressman from Connecticut said.

I try to avoid being part of the tin foil hat brigade (although if you're feeling really cynical and paranoid see Nick Berg's Killing: 50 Fishy Circumstances, Contradictory Claims, and Videotape Anomalies (Thanks, Rafe)), but I keep getting the feeling here that we're seeing ripples on the water and being asked to look elsewhere.

We now return you to your less serious Flutterby, now with more propagation of false memes.

The serious Flutterby is good as well, and I am always impressed with the amount of grey matter you invest into the socio-political world in the pursuit of "truth". I'm just not cognizant enough to be literate and insightful of that world.. and I'm so sick of it.. (I stomached 10 minutes of mainstream TV news today) that it just makes my head hurt to make sense of it..

I think that Lyn has goaded me into it. Over at Medley and All Too Cozy, she's been floating some thoughts on community and then some conversational thoughts. I've seen one particularly promising forum implode recently, and it had potential in the direction she's going, and I've started thinking "it'd be a stretch for me to participate in a forum with politically savvy participants, but I think I want an invite...".

Then the other day someone from California Peace Action came by our door. She was trying to get us to make a $120 donation, and when that failed asked us to write letters thanking Diane Feinstein

for her vote on S.2310, and asking Lynn Woolsey

and Barbara Boxer

for their votes on the House version.

Rather than commit to the "I'll canvas the neighborhood and pick up the letter" pitch, I wanted to take some to understand the issues she was pitching. So I read the thing, and realized that I not only need to start actively writing letters counter to their campaigns every time the American Family Association sends me a call to take action, I need to start taking a stronger interest in government and civic affairs in general.

I've been threatening for quite a while to start another 'blog and move Flutterby further into the collaborative space, maybe either I need to start doing longer rants on politics and take this space back to be a little more personally mine, or go ahead and build that other space too.

#Comment Re: made: 2004-05-18 00:08:55.769669+00 by: Shawn [edit history]

I'll admit that I don't follow these things very closely, but Powell has always stuck me as a pretty straightforward, no nonsense guy. And from what I have been reading lately, he's supposedly becoming more and more irritated with some of what the administration is doing and the role he's being told to play.