(2006-11-29) — On the day that The New York Times printed a classified memo revealing National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley’s secret assessment of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the White House announced it had discovered the source of such leaks, and has “begun a full review designed to explore changes to the official secret memo protocol.”
According to White House spokesman Tony Snow, top-secret memos related to national security and foreign policy include a “cc:” list of those who should receive copies.
The following is the standard secret memo copy list which has not been reviewed since the Clinton administration.
cc: Cabinet Officers, Director CIA, Robert Novak, Director FBI, Editor New York Times, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Saudi Royal Family, Chairman House Intelligence Committee, Kim Jong-Il, Chairman Senate Intelligence Committee, Kofi Annan, Benedict Arnold, Former U.S. Presidents, Matt Drudge, Barbra Streisand, Vice President, Friends and Family
47 responses so far ↓
1 JamesonLewis3rd // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:13 am
God Bless America
2 camojack // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:16 am
The following is the standard secret memo copy list which has not been reviewed since the Clinton administration.
Well, it’s about time they changed that, then!
3 Fred Sinclair // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:17 am
Best laugh of the day! And it’s only just begun.
Heirborn Ranger
4 onlineanalyst // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:18 am
‘Tis a veritable sprinkler system…with the grassroots being the last to know.
BTW Can anyone explain what the difference is between the Comment section and the Forum?
5 gafisher // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:52 am
How’d Babs get so far down the list? Has she offended someone?
6 RedPepper // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:57 am
#4 onlineanalyst: Near as I can see, the biggest difference is that most of us know how to use HTML in the Comments section … the Forum, however, holds a number of surprises for the unsuspecting …
7 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:08 am
When you find the leakers you give them either the Peabody & Sherman Award or a Pulitzer Price. And if the revelation really undermines American security under the Bush Administration the leakers should at least be in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize.
8 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:08 am
… a leaker stole my post.
9 Maggie // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:15 am
We need courageous men and women in our national security like those who choose jail rather than revealing their sources.
10 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:16 am
Paper: Iran Leader Writes to Americans…
Making his appeal directly to his cohorts in the DemDonk Party.
SCIENTIST PREDICTS GLOBAL WARMING ‘PLANETARY WIPEOUT’…
I guess secularists have their own Apocalypse story now.
TOO LATE: Prof Lovelock claims any attempts to tackle climate change will not be able to solve the problem…
Notice how it’s “climate change” and not global warming now. Well let’s just eat, drink, and marry for tomorrow we die!
Pelosi Decides Against Hastings as Intelligence Chair…
I thought it was Alcee who removed himself? Well, leave it to the lamestream media to put a positive spin on this for the wicked witch of the West.
11 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:17 am
…he stole it again. Anyone else having this problem?
12 Maggie // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:18 am
Good morning everybody!
13 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:27 am
Good morning, Maggie.
Here’s something to think about fellow Scrapplers. With clear Syrian support for the Iraqi Sunnis and Iranian support for the Iraqi Shiites, this Islamic sectarian violence would be more properly termed a “Proxy War” instead of a “civil war”. Of course such distinctions matter not to those innocent civilians who may be dying in such a conflict but we must never lose sight of the fact it is Islamic entities within the “religion of peace” which are ultimately behind the violence throughout the whole Middle East, not just Iraq.
14 JamesonLewis3rd // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:34 am
RE: #4~~
onlineanalyst~~
Here’s what Scott had to say about the purpose of ScrappleFace Forum.
I think it would be a good place for off-topic discussions and such, for example.
15 Ms RightWing, Ink // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:35 am
Nothing worse than a gas leak to make everything explode, I always say.
And, the NYTimies is a gas to say the least. To say the most I need a day or two to complete that post
16 Rock Slatestone // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:40 am
Why change things if it works…
17 Ms RightWing, Ink // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:43 am
re:4
Gee, I never saw that little thingy there. Looks kind of like a secret door into (?).
The only Forum I know of is The Fargo Forum and I know that door does not lead to Fargo.
18 upnorthlurkin // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:47 am
You just never know, Ms RW!! A chilly one here this am. A mere 4° with a forcast high of only 13°! Sure glad I took advantage of the rain and 36° yesterday and finished with the outdoor Christmas decorations!!
19 gafisher // Nov 29, 2006 at 10:45 am
Darth #10: Actually “Gaia Theory” Lovelock prefers to call it “global heating” because warming sounds too cozy. The only point I could extract from the story, though, is what you suggested: this epoch goes to the Epicurians. Al Gore might as well go back to the farm and his tobacco plants so we can all enjoy a smoke before the end.
20 JamesonLewis3rd // Nov 29, 2006 at 11:20 am
I sure hope Ahmadinezhad’s “letter” has a return address so I can reply.
I’d tell you what I would say but…..
21 onlineanalyst // Nov 29, 2006 at 11:33 am
Is D.C. built on? in? a swamp because the whole inside-the-beltway leaks like a sieve?
Okay, OT: Dennis Prager’s column yesterday raised the topic of the inappropriateness of the newly elected Keith Ellison’s refusal to be sworn in, using the Bible. The first Muslim (Woo!) to be seated in Congress insists on using the Koran during the swearing-in ceremony. Now, the custom of using a Bible for the occasion is merely a tradition, albeit one of long standing. In fact, one of the commenters cited the part of the Constitution that would forbid the insistance that Ellison swear his allegiance with a Bible. Here comes the creative part: Another commenter said that members of leadership who must be sworn in to their positions should make their pledges on the Constitution. Ta-da! This “higher authority” of fealty then could no longer have the loophole of a legislator or executive of imposing sharia. I like this reasoning.
22 onlineanalyst // Nov 29, 2006 at 11:37 am
Ahmadaboutjihad sends more letters than Perry Como ever received to “fill a request to sing a song we love best”. Couldn’t the Mad Iranian at least send some flowers to soften the message?
23 Bill's Bites // Nov 29, 2006 at 11:54 am
al-NYT: Still spying for the jihadis…
Bush Adviser’s Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — A classified memorandum by President Bush’s national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control…
24 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 11:57 am
Democratic Defeatism: An interesting political method of securing self-fulfilling prophecies which harm America and aid and abet a clever enemy.
25 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Actual news account:
Washington - The Glories of Islamic Art, a three-part documentary presented by Dr Akbar Ahmed, is to be screened by Britain’s Channel Five later this month.
Dr Ahmed, a professor of Islamic studies at the American University here, said old prejudices about Islam were resurfacing, and one of the world’s greatest and most humane religion was being portrayed once again, as it was in colonial times, as an inherently violent and fanatical religion that encouraged or condoned terrorism, as monolithic, backward and inferior. It is being accused of subjugating women and denying them their equal rights, making it out to be a religion incompatible with modern Western and democratic values, or even as the implacable enemy of Western civilisation.
Doh! Boy, Dr. Ahmed finally spoke the truth while simulataneously denying it. I think its called cognitive dissonance. The man obviously suffers from self-imposed blinders.
26 seneuba // Nov 29, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Anyone have a flashback to line from an old 1970’s commercial?
“If I have a secret, and I tell two people, and they tell two people, and so on, and so on, and so…”
Sounds like THAT policy is still in effect in DC.
27 Godfrey // Nov 29, 2006 at 2:39 pm
OLA: interesting quandry re: the Koran vs. the Bible. I actually think I’d rather have a public servant swear his oath of office on whatever he personally held dear than something he didn’t value…although happily we have a system with more stringent safeguards than mere oaths. Better yet, let’s keep religion out of it and just have him swear on (gasp) his honor.
Hank re: war films in last thread - you might find the documentary “Why We Fight” interesting - it’s fairly obvious that the filmmaker has an anti-war agenda but it also has some interesting viewpoints on the partial causes of the wars that have occured during our lifetime (for instance profiteering). I think it behooves any thinking person to acknowledge that there are reasons other than patriotism that a country goes to war and this flick addresses these other factors.
My favorite war doc is “The World At War”: 16+ hours documenting the complexities of World War II from every conceivable angle. It’s worth the $70.
re: “one of the world’s greatest and most humane religion was being portrayed…as an inherently violent and fanatical religion…”
He’s absolutely right. The problem with his statement, of course, is that the people who most successfully portray Islam as a violent and fanatical religion are the people who practice it.
D’oh indeed…
28 RedPepper // Nov 29, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Re #s 25, 27: Irshad Manji today on What is a ‘moderate’ Muslim?
29 RedPepper // Nov 29, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Oops. You might want to read her article starting from the first page …
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2476832_1,00.html
30 conserve-a-tips // Nov 29, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Good afternoon all. Gettin’ ready to batten down the hatches and watch the snow and ice move in. Global warming here we come. We are getting as much as 10 inches of snow and possible 1/2″ of ice. Send those poor arctic polar bears to us since it is so hot up there. Has dropped 40 degrees in the last couple of hours. Yeehaw.
Godfrey: I like the idea of using the constitution. Having dealt with many, many Muslims through business, I found that while they stick strickly to the Koran when dealing with each other - when dealing with us infidels, it’s “Katy bar the door.” If they are not willing to put their hand on the constitution, then they should not be in office.
31 Godfrey // Nov 29, 2006 at 3:38 pm
RedPepper: great article.
“…more and more Muslims are proclaiming that it’s time for a liberal Islamic reformation.” - Irshad Manji
I have my doubts as to whether this is an empirical statement, but I hope she’s right. Certainly if there were more Muslims like her we’d all be better off.
32 Godfrey // Nov 29, 2006 at 3:43 pm
CAT: the Constitution works for me. Although to some Muslims the Constitution might have no more meaning than a telephone book or yesterday’s classified section.
33 Darthmeister // Nov 29, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Godfrey,
I have the World At War series of documentaries on DVD. If I’m not mistaken, there is one volume entitled: Why We Fight … possibly volume 25. I’ll have to check it out when I get home to verify.
Frank Capra also had a documentary series: Why We Fight World War II. Volume 7 is War Comes to America and the parallels between Nazi expansionism and that of global Islamofascism is undeniable. Of course each fascist ideological movement is set in their own unique historical contexts, but only the most jaded anti-war ideologue couldn’t see the same patterns emerging.
There is little question in my mind that radical Islamism seeks to re-subjugate Europe since it is generally believed by those Muslims who envision a global caliphate that once a land has been conquered and brought into the Islamic hegemony it is forever Muslim land.
The blog NetWar articulated this truth in this way:
To the Muslim, once a land has been conquered in Jihad, that land is forever Muslim. It doesn’t matter if someone reconquers it and claims it as their own, the land remains theirs. If the Muslim’s had it once, they will “by the will of Allah” have it again. They might fight one war, ten wars, fifty wars, a thousand and lose each time, but one day they will fight the thousand and oneth war and win. The House of Truce is always a temporary situation which might turn to their advantage in the next battle that is fought. Any lands already conquered are in the land of Islam, any not conquered yet, are in the House of War. That means that to their mind, portions of Europe are theirs and they are eager to have them back again. Al Andalus (Spain) is already being reclaimed in many Muslim’s minds as theirs.
Fearmongering? Maybe, but be sure and read all this. France may fall within one generation to Islamists and there goes its nuclear arsenal!
34 Laughing@You // Nov 29, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Civil war? It ain’t no stinkin’ civil war! It’s civil unrest…, it’s al Quada, yeh, that’s the ticket, … its al Qaeda’s fault!
Meanwhile, Saddam sits in jail; don’t we need a dictator in Iraq about now?
What’s up with this? Leaks, leaks; we got leaks!
Now Maliki says he ain’t talkin’ to Dumbyah after “The Decider” went all that way!
And what about Powell; who does he think is CNC anyway?
What to do, what to do?
35 R.A.M. // Nov 29, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Why not add moveon.org to the list? That would eliminate more than a few names on the list, as they could just get the info there.
36 conserve-a-tips // Nov 29, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Well, I just read Ahm-a-durn-nut-job’s letter and I feel better knowing that he is the way and the truth. If he spoke German rather then Iranian, I wonder what his name would be….
37 Godfrey // Nov 29, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Hank: that’s not the Why We Fight I’m talking about. It was named after the Kapra propaganda as sort of a double entendre, I think.
This one is brand new (2006) and talks about the war in Iraq and the military-industrial complex Ike warned about in his last address. It’s interesting but, as I said, has an anti-war tilt. Follow this link to see which on I mean.
As far as Nazi fascism and Islamofascism, there are certainly obvious parallels but I think there are some key differences as well. I find such comparisons to be relatively useless.
More important to me is the question of what can be done to quell militant Islam before it becomes as strong as Nazism became…and whether we are going about it properly.
I don’t think we are. We have just enabled one of the few truly Islamofacist governments (Iran) to gain regional superiority in the region (by taking it’s primary enemy, Iraq, out of the equation). Via that same war we’ve also given al Jazeera some potent images to broadcast to the Muslim world. In hindsight, was this an effective course in stamping out militant Islam? Or have we helped it along?
The war may have been correct as far as the original intent (democracy in Iraq, a foothold in the region), but the way we went about prosecuting this war has put us behind the 8-ball both politically and in terms of our future ability to fight extremism. Blaming the Democrats (or the media) simply won’t do because a shrewd politician would have anticipated everything, including the Democrats’ buckling to temptation and using the war for personal gain and the American public’s short attention span. Neither of these things were unknowns (much less “unknown unknowns”) prior to the war: how did our government fail to anticipate them?
We also missed what might have been our last attempt to isolate Iran back during the Hezzie-Israel skirmish this summer. As I said at that time, we had a very brief (and very fortuitious) window of opportunity to change the entire game by making friends with Syria and turning them against Iran. Imagine if Syria was on our side (where, as secularists, they belong) during the last few months. Things might be entirely different. Iran certainly wouldn’t be so smug.
But we didn’t do that either. And so the drum beats on, louder than ever. My greatest worry isn’t that Islam will take over Spain but that a nuclear Iran will have a stranglehold on the world’s oil supply in ten years. Islamic Caliphate? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Unfortunately our current back-against-the-wall political position probably won’t allow us to prevent this from happening.
At this point I’m fairly disgusted at the way the adminstration has been handling things-with the forsight of a five-year-old and all the finesse of a rhino.
38 Laughing@You // Nov 29, 2006 at 6:14 pm
I worked for Moveon.org a little. They look a lot smarter than anyone here about now.
39 Laughing@You // Nov 29, 2006 at 6:33 pm
In other words:
“I wokerd for Mveoon.org a ltlite. They look a lot sermatr than aynnoe hree abuot now.
Cmnoemt by Lnhgauig@You — Neebovmr 29, 2006 @ 6:14 pm
40 Ghoti // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Are you poking fun of Ten Kennedy’s drunken, slurred speech?
41 Ghoti // Nov 29, 2006 at 8:10 pm
Make that “Ted,” or Ten Kenneny. When making reference to him, it’s tough to even type coherently.
42 rightlinx.com » Blog Archive » Laugh Links // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:13 pm
[…] Scrappleface reports that the White House Finds Leak Source, Ponders Solution. […]
43 Laughing@You // Nov 29, 2006 at 11:53 pm
everthink:
Maybe you all here could just exchange recipes, or something; because you haven’t got a clue about government, or politics, except as practiced by Karl Rove; and that doesn’t work much anymore either.
44 Fred Sinclair // Nov 30, 2006 at 6:50 am
What if all this time, we’ve been using the wrong ammo? The Liberal Leftists are wholeheartedly dedicated to doing as close as possible the exact opposite of what the Reagan Conservatives propose. We want hot - they demand cold. We want wet - they demand dry. We want high - they demand low.
Almost without exception their commitment to thwarting our purpose knows no limits. If we began demanding 100% Military withdrawal from Iraq - they will start screaming “STAY THE COURSE” - Elect Hillary in ‘08! - they will counter with “Throw her under the bus!!!” Given their proven child like mentality maybe it’s time for some child psychology?
Heirborn Ranger
45 mig // Nov 30, 2006 at 7:21 am
Please pray for the families of Carmen Z. whose mother was buried Tuesday, Debbie M. whose brother died Monday, Sharon T. whose husband died Tuesday and Kerry and Brian S. whose 6 month old daughter was buried Wednesday. Sigh.
46 mig // Nov 30, 2006 at 7:22 am
Hey L@U
Here’s you recipe…
Take a pinch of sugar between the lips and gum for a sweeter disposition.
47 MargeinMI // Nov 30, 2006 at 8:19 am
On the fast track, mig. Wow.
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