Trump-Russia: Bountygate

[Jon Banks]

One final try from me:

The fact is that Bush declared war not Cheney. And the fact is that Bush was told by his intelligence agencies that Iraq had WMD and a WMD program. George Tenet, the CIA director, told him, "It's a slam dunk" that Iraq had WMD. This was not Cheney telling him this.

And the fact is that numerous others governments also believed Iraq had WMDs. Did Tony Blair believe Dick Cheney? Or did he rely on his own intelligence services?

And the facts are that members of Congress based on their own briefings and intelligence provided to them by the intelligence agencies  - and NOT Cheney - believed there was WMDs in Iraq. And so they agreed to authorize the use of force - the war - that ensued.

And the fact is there were several investigations - including the Silberman/Robb report - that concluded that the intelligence agencies were wrong about the issue. The intelligence agencies and analysts informed Congress about the question. Congress has its own intelligence committees and oversight and staff. They got the information directly from the intelligence community and NOT Dick Cheney.

You think Hillary Clinton and Kerry and the other Democrats in Congress agreed to the authorization because they listened to Dick Cheney? You think the intelligence community told them there were no WMDs in Iraq but instead they believed Cheney's "lies"? Is that what you think happened?

The Silbermann/Robb Report concluded: "The Intelligence Community's performance in assessing Iraq's pre-war weapons of mass destruction programs was a major intelligence failure. The failure was not merely that the Intelligence Community's assessments were wrong. There were also serious shortcomings in the way these assessments were made and communicated to policymakers."

Again: The intelligence community said Iraq had WMDs. It wasn't Dick Cheney. You think they said there were no WMDs in Iraq and then Cheney made up a story that Iraq did have them? And then all of the Democrats believed Cheney? This is JFK conspiracy level fantasy.

This is not about Trump being likeable. It's about him telling egregious and dangerous falsehoods about the election and about his cavalier reaction - at best - to the assault on the Capitol.

Our institutions are under assault from the Trump right and the "woke" left. Both sides are undermining our institutions, our history, our country. This illiberal assault has to stop. There are no sides; there's just facts and the truth. And one of them, if not the main one is this: the election wasn't stolen. Period.

UN Weapons inspector and former spy, Scott Ritter, admitted that he knew most of Iraq's weapons stockpiles were destroyed after the first Gulf War.

There was no evidence that Iraq created new stockpiles of banned weapons after they kicked the Weapons Inspectors out.

It's simply naive to think that WMDs were anything more than a convenient excuse to overthrow Saddam's regime. Something that Hawks on both the Left and Right wanted to do going back to the Clinton administration.

Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act#:~:text=The%20Iraq%20Liberation%20Act%20of,is%20the%20policy%20of%20the


Lastly, Dick Cheney might not have been responsible for the WMD disinfo but he is largely responsible for spreading debunked lies about Saddam playing a role in the 9/11 attacks.

Remembering Why Americans Loathe Dick Cheney
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/remembering-why-americans-loathe-dick-cheney/244306/

...despite overwhelming skepticism within the government of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda--resulting in the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission that "no credible evidence" for such a link existed, and the CIA's determination that Hussein "did not have a relationship" with Al Qaeda--the vice president continued to insist that the relationship had been confirmed

[Steve M. Galbraith]

To add a post note to my own post above: I have no idea, literally none, what Dick Cheney's views or statements, alleged "lies", comments on Iraq almost 20 years ago has to do with Liz Cheney's views today about Donald Trump and the dangerous falsehoods he is saying about the election and the January 6th assault on the Capitol.

How is what Dick Cheney said about Iraq and WMDs even remotely relevant to Liz Cheney's views on an entirely different matter? These are two separate people on two different subjects.

To put it differently: If Dick Cheney opposed the Iraq war would that somehow make Liz Cheney's views on Trump correct? How are Liz Cheney's views affected by what Dick Cheney said almost two decades ago?

Answers: They wouldn't and they aren't. Liz Cheney's views on Trump stand or fall on their own and shouldn't be judged because another person on another subject two decades ago did something.

And with that, I'll return to the JFK assassination issue.

[Jon Banks]

Liz Cheney worked at the State Department while her father was VP and while she worked for the government, she co-signed her father’s lies.

She went even further by defending the CIA’s torture program.

Worse, she publicly threw her gay sister under the bus.

I commend her for taking a principled stance against Trump but that doesn’t mean she’s a good person…

[Richard Smith]

Colonial is a private company. It was their call.

They were losing millions of dollars for each day that the pipeline was not able to distribute Gas. So it makes sense to pay the ransom rather than lose the same amount of money or more due to delays in getting their computers back online.

That doesn't inspire much confidence.  If a group of Russian hackers can shutdown the gas supply to half the US and demand a ransom, that is a major national security issues.  Only the US government has the power to put a stop to that.  Turn the power off in Moscow for a few days and this will come to an end real fast.  But we have Old Joe asleep at the wheel.  Imagine the indignation if Trump were President while the Russians caused a major US gas shortage and were paid millions in ransom and all he had to say was that Putin wasn't involved and that he had "no comment."   The media would be clamoring for impeachment.

[Jon Banks]

That doesn't inspire much confidence.  If a group of Russian hackers can shutdown the gas supply to half the US and demand a ransom, that is a major national security issues.  Only the US government has the power to put a stop to that.  Turn the power off in Moscow for a few days and this will come to an end real fast.  But we have Old Joe asleep at the wheel.  Imagine the indignation if Trump were President while the Russians caused a major US gas shortage and were paid millions in ransom and all he had to say was that Putin wasn't involved and that he had "no comment."   The media would be clamoring for impeachment.

Stupid idea. Russia has the ability to retaliate in a major way if the US escalates our Cyber attacks. Offensive escalation is a bad idea.

Cyber Warfare is the nuclear weapons of the 21st century. Do you really believe Russia can't shut down our infrastructure in retaliation?

I don't know what the solution is but I doubt Trump would've done what you're recommending.

The bottom line is, Colonial is a private company and many private companies are unable to secure their networks from Hackers.

We need the military to do more to help secure vulnerable private networks. Strengthening our Cybers Defenses is the only thing we can realistically do.

[Richard Smith]

Stupid idea. Russia has the ability to retaliate in a major way if the US escalates our Cyber attacks. Offensive escalation is a bad idea.

Cyber Warfare is the nuclear weapons of the 21st century. Do you really believe Russia can't shut down our infrastructure in retaliation?

I don't know what the solution is but I doubt Trump would've done what you're recommending.

The bottom line is, Colonial is a private company and many private companies are unable to secure their networks from Hackers.

We need the military to do more to help secure vulnerable private networks. Strengthening our Cybers Defenses is the only thing we can realistically do.

This is not just any private company like the local store.  It is an organization that supplies gas to a large portion the US.  There is a national, governmental interest in protecting them from such attacks.  What is a stupid idea is to pay ransom and emboldened further acts.  Cyber attacks are cat and mouse.  They can never be completely stopped by purely defensive measures.  Putin knows who these people are.  He could put a stop to it this minute.  But instead he is laughing his arse off at Biden's weakness.  Half the US was just crippled by some Russian teenagers who are millionaires.  Putin only responds when some of his rich friends are inconvenienced.  Turn the power off to some Russian oligarch's factory and there would be immediate results.  This would never happen again from Russia.  Imagine if this had happened under Trump and his only response was to end the mask mandate to change the topic.  The Dems would be howling in outrage clamoring for his impeachment.

[Jon Banks]

This is not just any private company like the local store. It is an organization that supplies gas to a large portion the US. There is a national, governmental interest in protecting them from such attacks.

It's still a private company.

If you think this example and others like SolarWinds justifies the Federal govt taking a bigger role in Cyber Security for private businesses, I totally agree.

As far as retaliation, it will become an endless cycle if neither side has a technological advantage...