Does anybody remember this Story?
"A mid-level intelligence officer assigned to the CIA persistently questioned the targeting of a building that turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, but his concerns went unheeded inside the spy agency and at the U.S. military's European Command, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday."
"Clearly the means of identifying the building was inappropriate, flawed," one administration official said. "The system of checks and balances didn't work."
"Nato deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications. "
I bring up this story to make a few points. First, to emphasize that intelligence and intelligence gathering is not an exact science. Often a best guess must be made based on a limited availability of information to come to a final conclusion. Secondly, to show the complete and overt double standard that is often placed on a Republican administration. No where in the reports of the bombing are there ANY discussions about the President's role in the bombing. Many of the reports talk about the CIA's role and NATO's role, but nothing implicating the President. Even the Republicans leadership did not suggest that the President and his administration acted improperly. Shortly after the errant(?) bombing, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post had very little to say about the incident and in response to the allegation that the bombing may have been intentional. This same standard has not been applied to the current discussion of the claims made by the Bush administration that Iraq was seeking to purchase Uranium. Most of the major press outlets are making a concerted effort to show that the President of the United States lied about the Information. There is this story EXPLICTEDLY claiming that the President knew the information was false.:
It is amazing to me how the press and the Democrats are SO quick to claim that a Republican President committed a treasonous act. Furthermore, these discussions are not helpful is solving a REAL problem, that is a breakdown of the intelligence community. Finally, these discussion are picked up by the foreign press and are irreparably harming the nation's reputation abroad and, like the anti-war demonstration that occurred prior to the Iraq war, are give aid and comfort to our enemies and bolstering their will to fight. So much for internal American issues stopping at our shores. I fear that partisan fighting and bickering will only make the global security situation much worse and place more soldiers and American citizens at risk.
<< Home