Before he shows us the smoking gun, let's look at the smoking man

[Atlanta Skins Fan]

Between now and Election Day 2004, a stunned U.S. populace will be provided "definitive proof" -- the proverbial "smoking gun" -- that Saddam Hussein indeed possessed dangerous weapons of mass destruction.

Here is the man who will show us that smoking gun: Charles Duelfer -- the proverbial "smoking man."

Duelfer is the CIA's new Special Advisor for Strategy regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programs, having replaced David Kay in January -- Kay having famously failed to find any WMDs at all.

Certainly Duelfer seems well qualified: after all, he served as "Deputy Executive Chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) from 1993 until its termination in 2000," according to the CIA's own press release.

But, there are two odd details that the CIA's press release failed to mention:

1. UNSCOM turned up empty-handed during the latter 1990s. So why would the Cheney Administration go back to the guy who cried wolf endlessly but never delivered?
   
2. More to the point, wasn't Duelfer already proven to be a U.S. spy subverting the U.N. inspection program?
   

Spinning the clock further backward on Duelfer, you find that he served under Bush Sr. as James Baker's Director of the Center for Defense Trade in the State Dept. Essentially Duelfer was a U.S.-sponsored arms profileration lobbyist under Bush Sr., tasked to pimp for U.S. defense contractors in shady street corners all around the world.

So Duelfer was an errand boy for James Baker at State and for Cheney at DOD in Bush Sr.'s administration. And then somehow this man became the U.N. point man for UNSCOM inspections, amounting to a collossal failure over eight years of inspections between 1993 and 2000 . . . the Clinton years . . . never willing to admit that Hussein had in fact disarmed.

Could it be that his role was simply to prolong Iraq's prostration, simply because his old paymasters wanted it that way? Could it be that his role was simply to buy his old paymasters time? Because the one thing these aging bitter men could not abide was the thought of the world's second largest oil state rising again under Hussein -- when they could carve up its trillions of dollars of oil for themselves?

Lost in history is the fact that Hussein nearly got Iraq on its feet again, despite the sanctions. By 1998, Iraq's oil production was beginning to approach pre-Gulf War levels. By 1997, it was clear that much of the world was getting a piece of the action in Iraq -- everybody but the U.S. and the bitter old oilmen of the former Bush administration. As Cheney's secret 2001 task force would reveal in detail, Iraq had more suitors sinking pipe in her than Madonna. By this point, of course, 10 days into the "Bush" Administration, Cheney was simply taking names of the soon-to-be ex-title holders.

The real action started back in 1997 and 1998 at PNAC, first with a saber-rattling letter to Clinton -- cornering that punk lest he let Hussein out of their trap -- and most daringly, with their grotesque 1990 blueprint for world domination.

The puzzle about 9/11 is how it fits so neatly, yet so unthinkably: the attacks so perfectly suit the plans of the neo-con fascists. That would be merely a conspiracy theory, were it not for the disturbing apparent fact that Israeli agents were monitoring some of the 9/11 attackers in Hollywood, Florida, during their flight training and extended residence prior to the attacks. (Israeli agents actually occupied a house on the same street as the attackers.)

So, the question of 9/11 turns on which hideous truth do you care to believe? That Israel planned and coordinated the attacks? That we planned the attacks and used Israeli agents to coordinate or monitor them? That Israel knew about the attacks and didn't warn us? Or that Israel knew about the attacks, did warn us specifically, and we deliberately didn't heed the warning?

It's possible to derive any of these conclusions from the evidence.

Here's what we do know: On the day the U.N. provided the U.S. and U.K with the authority of "occupying powers" over Iraq, the Cheney Administration immediately subverted the intent of that U.N. resolution with Executive Order 13303 -- providing for the effective transfer of Iraq's oil reserves to U.S. oil companies.

People complain that the U.S. didn't have an exit strategy for Iraq. They're wrong. It's just that the exit strategy was about money and oil and power and unbridled corporate influence.

You watch: in time, the legions fighting in the desert will fight under black corporate flags. No more messy U.S. servicemen deaths and disgraces. Just anonymous corporate subcontractors at hell's machine guns, in a death match against wave after wave of the dispossessed.

[Sarge]

:laugh:

Yeah, all those guys getting on those planes that morning with the Star of David necklaces around their necks

[luckydevil]

ah

I missed ASF

[Brave]

Even IF it were true that Israeli agents were monitoring some of the 9/11 terrorists ... and of that I am not convinced ... that does not directly translate into them knowing or planning the attacks.

Why couldn't they be monitoring as a means of FINDING OUT what they were up to ... without actually having that knowledge yet?

These small assumptions and leaps of faith lead to conjecture and the conspiracy theories abound.

[jbooma]

ASF you need to put your efforts into other things

[codeorama]

The REAL smoking man...

[@DCGoldPants]

remember that really crappy movie with Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts? Gibson was all about conspiracies.....wait...Conspiracy Theory I think.

Anyway, that is what I thought of when I read this.....even that part when the Cabbie was right.

Who knows? but man....that was entertaining to read.

[Destino]

I smell democratic underground.