Rather dumb

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-21-2004
Rather dumb
59
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 1:42pm
Dan Rather just apologized for using FAKE documents to attempt to slander the reputation of our sitting president in wartime in an attempt to sway the election. Maybe he didn't use those words, but that's the way it shakes out.

He did NOT say that he and CBS were going to persue and expose the perpetrators of this act. Wonder why not? Their credibility is shot. Their only hope at restoring ANY credibility in the future would be to turn on their source and rat him out. Unless, CBS is the source... Or John Kerry's campaign...


The only way I could see CBS recovering from this would be to fire EVERYONE on the CBS Evening News and start over.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 12:55pm
<>

...and entirely consisting of speculation on your part. Your wishful thinking is also making that speculation pretty horrible as well.

It wouldn't be surprising if there was something in there that the press might grab, blow out of proportion and run with. If we want to speculate, perhaps it was something to do with pshychological stress felt my a great many soldiers stemming from the horrors of war. Who knows. If we are merely speculating, post trumatic stress disorder while common, natural and understandable, could be spun to look like the man running for the presidency a loon. Again speculating, maybe he picked up a good case of the clap when on leave in Saigon....also not uncommon. These things have nothing to do with a person's ability to be president over 30 years later, but in this day of extremely dirty politics, would have a great impact on someone's ability to get elected.

I can't help but think that medical records should be sacrosanct and shoud remain private. If I wanted to run for office, but had to release my medical records to the public, I wouldn't and I have nothing in there to be ashamed of.

Is there nothing sacred any more?




Edited 9/22/2004 1:01 pm ET ET by suemox

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-20-2004
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 12:58pm


Not when you're running for public office. Even libel and slander laws no longer apply, hence Dan Rather's escape from justice.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 1:03pm
You might have missed it, but I edited my previous post with another wild speculation on why Kerry might be reluctant to release his medical records.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 1:03pm
According to what I've read people have been trying to find out about Bush's military records since he's been running for governor of Texas. If Bush is clean why does he still have blobs over stuff (names probably)?? XOXO.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-20-2004
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 1:11pm
I don't care about Kerry's medical records --although it would be interesting to see if he's really got shrapnel like he says he does.

No, his military records interest me. You know, the desertion in time of war, aid and comfort to the enemy... the little things we are so eager to overlook because he's not Bush.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 1:12pm
For sure, one of the items blacked out was a name....James Bath

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml

QUESTIONABLE TIES

Tracking bin Laden's money flow leads back to Midland, Texas

by Wayne Madsen

On September 24, President George W. Bush appeared at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce a crackdown on the financial networks of terrorists and those who support them. “U.S. banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts,” Bush declared. “And U.S. citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them.”

But the president, who is now enjoying an astounding 92 percent approval rating, hasn’t always practiced what he is now preaching: Bush’s own businesses were once tied to financial figures in Saudi Arabia who currently support bin Laden.

In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden’s, in Arbusto.

In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the ’80s in what has been called the “largest bank fraud in world financial history” by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the ’80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI’s frontman in Houston’s Main Bank.

The Arbusto deal wasn’t the last time Bush looked to highly questionable sources to invest in his oil dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin Mahfouz.

Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had “no idea” BCCI was involved in Harken’s financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: “The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken—all since George W. Bush came on board—raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Or even the president: Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing the bin Laden terrorist network—making Bush a U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz’s sister is also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate testimony.)

When President Bush announced he is hot on the trail of the money used over the years to finance terrorism, he must realize that trail ultimately leads not only to Saudi Arabia, but to some of the same financiers who originally helped propel him into the oil business and later the White House. The ties between bin Laden and the White House may be much closer than he is willing to acknowledge.


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 1:14pm
<<... the little things we are so eager to overlook because he's not Bush.>>

....and the little things we are so eager to speculate about and believe because.......

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 1:24pm
To be entirely fair, Kerry also has "links" to BCCI.

http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=2004083122264320

Kerry and BCCI: Maybe this is why the smears won't stop.

Tuesday, August 31 2004

While Bush was dealing with 'the terorrists' bank,' Kerry was busting it. The mainstream media might want to ask why so many BCCI players hold prominent positions in the Thug administration. David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin drop some history on ya.

Kerry's record in the BCCI affair, of course, contrasts sharply with Bush's. The current president's career as an oilman was always marked by the kind of insider cronyism that Kerry resisted. Even more startling, as a director of Texas-based Harken Energy, Bush himself did business with BCCI-connected institutions almost at the same time Kerry was fighting the bank. As The Wall Street Journal reported in 1991, there was a "mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding since George W. Bush came on board." In 1987, Bush secured a critical $25 million-loan from a bank the Kerry Commission would later reveal to be a BCCI joint venture. Certainly, Bush did not suspect BCCI had such questionable connections at the time. But still, the president's history suggests his attacks on Kerry's national-security credentials come from a position of little authority.

As the presidential campaign enters its final stretch, Kerry's BCCI experience is important for two reasons. First, it reveals Kerry's foresight in fighting terrorism that is critical for any president in this age of asymmetrical threats. As The Washington Post noted, "years before money laundering became a centerpiece of antiterrorist efforts...Kerry crusaded for controls on global money laundering in the name of national security."

Make no mistake about it, BCCI would have been a player. A decade after Kerry helped shut the bank down, the CIA discovered Osama bin Laden was among those with accounts at the bank. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed, and that the financial network operated by bin Laden today "is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI." As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations."

Second, the BCCI affair showed Kerry to be a politician driven by a sense of mission, rather than expediency--even when it meant ruffling feathers. Perhaps Sen. Hank Brown, the ranking Republican on Kerry's subcommittee, put it best. "John Kerry was willing to spearhead this difficult investigation," Brown said. "Because many important members of his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry did."

CONTINUED..."

If you want to read Kerry's Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations from 1992, go here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-20-2004
In reply to: adaemi
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 4:38pm
....and the little things we are so eager to speculate about and believe because.......

we give Kerry the benefit of assuming he told the truth when he said he had not yet come under fire 9 days after the self-reported purple heart citation on which he reported coming under enemy fire;

we have his Senate testimony in which he either admitted to being a horrible war criminal or was a spectacular liar for self gain;

we have his claim to have been in Cambodia on Christmas when we can prove that he was not;

The list goes on. Must we pretend to be so naive?

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