Remember the time Petraeus said John Kiriakou HAD to face prosecution for leaking classified info?

[bigtree]

Daniel Wright ‏@DanSWright
Remember that time David Petraeus claimed John Kiriakou HAD to face criminal prosecution for leaking classified info? http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82758.html …


from Politico, Oct. 2012:

...former Agency officer John Kiriakou pled guilty to one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) and, under the terms of a plea agreement, he will receive a sentence of 30 months in prison,” said CIA director David H. Petraeus in a statement to employees.

“This case yielded the first IIPA successful prosecution in 27 years, and it marks an important victory for our Agency, for our Intelligence Community, and for our country,” Petraeus continued. “Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy. Accordingly, I thank our legal and counterintelligence specialists for their contributions to this effort, and I appreciate the hard work and dedication of the men and women of the Department of Justice in bringing this case to a successful conclusion.”


read: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82758.html

emptywheel ‏@emptywheel
It's really a fucking shame @JohnKiriakou is still in prison bc he'd have a lot to say about this Petraeus garment rending.

ht: An Angry DEMOCRAT @AngryVoters

[riderinthestorm]

1. Have the DU authoritarian crowd weighed in on prosecuting Petraeus?

If they value consistency, then Petraus needs to be in jail...

... But he's Obama's friend which means they don't want him in jail just like
Feinstein.

If they don't want him in jail, then Kiriakou needs to be released asap. He's actually a wrongfully imprisoned whistleblower anyway.

Anyway, looks like Petraus' words are coming back to bite him in the ass. Good.

Big K&R

[bigtree]

2. right

...better to release Kiriakou and reform the CIA, intelligence agencies.

[riderinthestorm]

4. +1. Nt

[Scuba]

5. They've said they'd love to prosecute Petraeus, but the FBI has "contaminated" the case.

Or some such nonsense.

[JDPriestly]

6. Agreed. Either one or both should be in jail.

I would opt for neither.

Seems to me however that Petraeus' betrayal was greater than Kriakou's.

Petraeus' motivations in giving secret information to his girlfriend were not as noble as Kriakou's in giving the information to Congress and the American people.

Petraeus' motivations were possibly self-aggrandizement, se ?) or other self-serving purposes. Kriakou was telling truths that were being suppressed in order to cover up cruelty and maybe even sadism at the highest levels of our government.

Petraeus -- was any noble purpose possible for his sharing information with his girlfriend?

By the way is Petraeus still married to his then wife. She seemed rather nice. He does not.

[okaawhatever]

9. Kiriakou wasn't imprisoned for whistleblowing. In fact he DEFENDED waterboarding. He is in prison

for leaking the identity of a CIA officer a la Valerie Plame. I'm sure you showed sufficient outrage when Valerie was outed, but are an apologist for torture-apologist Kiriakou.(He also got the exact same sentence as Libby, but his wasn't commuted).

It sickens me, the people who think anyone who was put in jail by the government is "telling truths that were being suppressed". Make me want to f*()ing vomit.

Waterboarding was already revealed before Kirikaou confirmed it on tv. He also wasn't on TV to discuss waterboarding or for any other noble cause. He was trying to sell his books. You know, the ones he lied to the CIA about and then laughed about it in emails. Apparently he thinks it's funny to put people in harms way as long as he makes money off of it.

Kirikaou is a total dbag and there is nothing noble about his actions. Maybe if you could print even one thing accurately about him your story would go further.

[riderinthestorm]

13. He revealed the name to Abu Zubaydah's defense attorney

You know, the guy who was water boarded 80+ times?

He's not the stark dirt bag you paint him to be. He's universally acknowledged as the agent who told the world we were waterboarding.

It took great courage and assured his demise in the intelligence business. Therefore the necessity to make money somehow... Like selling a book...

[okaawhatever]

19. LOL You defend your lies with more lies. Again, THE TRUTH:

A. He did not give the name to Abu Zubaydah's defense attorney. HE GAVE THEM TO A REPORTER. (and it wasn't just one name. They only prosecuted on one). The reporter gave the name to the defense attorney. That defense attorney showed pictures of the named men to see if the inmates could identify the men as the men who had waterboarded them. The pictures being shown was what started the investigation into the leaking of names. THIS HAPPENED A FEW YEARS AFTER KIRIAKOU HAD BEEN ON TV WITH THE WATERBOARDING STORY.

HOW DOES THAT FIT INTO YOUR NARRATIVE? WHY DID THE GOVERNMENT WAIT YEARS AFTER HIS TV APPEARANCE BEFORE ARRESTING HIM FOR ANOTHER CRIME COMPLETELY? AND IF HIS REAL CRIME WAS WHISTLEBLOWING WHY WAS IT NEVER MENTIONED OR CHARGED?

B. He had already left his job in intelligence before writing the book, so the idea that he was snubbed is a joke.

It is clear that you have no interest in learning the truth on this matter. Perhaps you could read a few articles posted at the time to learn more of your hero. But let me forewarn you, it isn't pretty.

[bigtree]

20. good look at events preceding the delayed prosecution

The Evolution of Patrick Fitzgerald’s Investigation into Torturer Disclosures

https://www.emptywheel.net/2012/01/27/the-evolution-of-patrick-fitzgeralds-investigation-into-torturer-disclosures/

[okaawhatever]

23. Don't insult me. I am relying on court transcripts, info from the ACLU who was all over the case,

and the New York Times. You're offering up "emptywheel'. Refer to the post where I responded to JKPriestly. I included several links and transcripts from the ABC Interview.

The idea of delayed prosecution is ridiculous. You seem to forget that Kiriakou's statements on ABC news were widely used IN SUPPORT of waterboarding. He said that it had been very successful in stopping attacks and getting information. He claimed that after about 30 seconds of torture Abu had spilled his guts and given up all of Al Qaeda's secrets. The government couldn't have asked for better press. Kiriakou said later in the interview that he now opposed the program, but that 2002 was a different time and he defended the use of it post-2011.

[bigtree]

34. okaawhatever

'emptywheel' or, Marcy Wheeler is a good source of info for anyone looking in on these posts . . . she was a high profile journalist reporting on the Scooter Libby trial.

In 2013, Newsweek published an article about Wheeler titled "The Woman Who Knows The NSA's Secrets."

I think I've had enough of 'okaawhatever'.

[JDPriestly]

16. Could you provide some links. I stand corrected if you do.

I did not realize that he had given away the name of a CIA agent.

Please provide a link. Thanks.

[okaawhatever]

22. Gladly. I'll include some excerpts to give you an overview.

Kiriakou confirmed waterboarding on tv in 2007. These charges didn't come until much later (he was indicted in April of 2012, but the investigation began sooner)

From the New York Times:

In October, Mr. Kiriakou pleaded guilty to one charge of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act when he disclosed to a reporter the name of an agency officer who had been involved in the C.I.A.’s program to hold and interrogate detainees.

Judge Brinkema said, “This is not a case of a whistle-blower.” She went on to describe how the identity of the C.I.A. officer working under cover had been revealed by Mr. Kiriakou’s disclosures, and the damage it had caused the agency, based on a sealed statement from the undercover agent.

In subsequent e-mail exchanges with a freelance writer, Mr. Kiriakou disclosed the name of one of his former colleagues, who was still under cover and had been a part of the detention and interrogation program.

The freelancer later passed the name of the undercover agent to lawyers representing several Qaeda suspects being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The lawyers later included the name in a sealed legal filing, angering government officials and kick-starting the federal investigation that ultimately ensnared Mr. Kiriakou. The name was not disclosed publicly at the time, but it appeared on an obscure Web site last October. In January 2012, federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Kiriakou, accusing him of disclosing the identity of an agency analyst who had worked on the 2002 raid that led to Abu Zubaydah’s capture and interrogation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/us/ex-officer-for-cia-is-sentenced-in-leak-case.html

How the investigation began and the timing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/us/ex-cia-officer-john-kiriakou-accused-in-leak.html

The agency had initially pressed for an investigation of the Guantánamo detainee lawyers — not of its own former employee. The inquiry traces back to the spring of 2009, after government officials learned that Guantánamo defense lawyers were trying to identify C.I.A. interrogators — including the discovery of 32 pages of photographs in the cells of several Guantánamo detainees. The photos were a line-up of random people and suspected interrogators; the attorneys were trying to identify potential witnesses who could testify about abusive treatment, as mitigating evidence against death sentences.

About his lying to the CIA when he sought approval for his book, same article mentioned above;

Investigators, the complaint said, also found e-mails in which Mr. Kiriakou allegedly bragged to the co-author of his 2010 memoir, “The Reluctant Spy,” about misleading a C.I.A. review board about a classified technique for tracking cellphones, used in hunting Abu Zubaydah, so that they would not censor it. A reference to such a device also appeared in The Times article.

But, F.B.I. agent Joseph Capitano wrote in court documents, investigators cleared the defense team representing the detainees: “No law or military commission order expressly prohibited defense counsel from providing their clients with the photographic spreads in question under these circumstances.”

His statement on waterboarding in 2007 on abc news from the actual transcript.

...He was able to withstand the waterboarding for quite some time. And by that I mean probably 30, 35 seconds...and a short time afterwards, in the next day or so, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate.

He later states that he has come to the conclusion that waterboarding is wrong, but didn't feel that way at the time (but remember, this guy was making a bomb and had plans for a children's school when they caught him)

Not these guys. And at the time I-- I felt that
water boarding was something that we needed to
do. And as time has passed, and has-- as
September 11th has-- has, you know, has moved
farther and farther back into history-- I think
I've changed my mind. And I think that-- water
boarding is probably something that we shouldn't
be in the business of doing.

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Blotter/brianross_kiriakou_transcript1_blotter071210.pdf

It was later revealed that Kiriakou, who hadn't witnessed the waterboarding, had been misled or was uninformed as to the amount of times it was used and the success with using it. But the waterboarding wasn't the issue, his leaking CIA agent's names was. (something he did more than once, but charges were dropped in the Deuce Martinez case). The main point being.....the narrative of JK being a whistleblower who was screwed over for disclosing the waterboarding program is blatantly false. In fact, his interview with ABC was quoted many times in the press as a good reason to use waterboarding. Check around pages 16-20 in the transcript to hear how he spoke of it positively. He was the one who said it resulted in useful information, and had stopped attacks.

He now is fully opposed to the program and has been an outspoken critic. Is that genuine? Probably, but it isn't why he went to jail.

p.s. He was working for Liberty University and had a private security firm when this happened i think working for Liberty University should be a crime in and of itself. Lolz.

[JDPriestly]

24. Thanks for correcting my misinformation.

[merrily]

29. Yes, Kirikaou pled guilty to revealing Plame's covert status. Cheney and Armitage did not.

Weren't even prosecuted. So, the main point--about different kinds of justice for different kinds of people holds.

And yes, Kirikaou was not the first to expose the torture program, but he was one of the first and one of the most publicized.

[okaawhatever]

35. Actually, Kirikaou didn't plead guilty to revealing Plame's covert status. That was Scooter Libby.

Kiriakou was found guilty of revealing the name of a different officer who was undercover at the time (and apparently that caused serious repercussions. The info supporting that claim was sealed, but Kiriakou's attorneys didn't fight it so I assume it to be true).

No Cheney and Armitage did not get prosecuted because it was revealed that Scooter Libby was the one who actually revealed Valerie Plame's identity.

While I agree that different kinds of justice happen, in this case Kiriakou received the exact same sentence as Libby for the exact same crime. The difference came when Bush commuted his sentence. One of the few decent things Bush did was refuse to pardon Libby, even though Rove and Cheney fought hard for it.

[merrily]

36. Ummm.

Cheney did reveal Plame's status to Bushco insiders Armitage revealed it to Novak. Cheney admitted as much to the prosecutor and Armitage admitted the same publicy, but both claimed ignorance that their actions had been wrong in any way.

http://murraywaas.crooksandliars.com/2008/12/23/exclusive-cheneys-admissions-to-the-cia-leak-prosecutor-and-fbi/

http://thinkprogress.org/report/leak-scandal/

Also:

According to testimony given in the CIA leak grand jury investigation and United States v. Libby, Bush administration officials Richard Armitage, Karl Rove, and Lewis Libby discussed the employment of a then-classified, covert CIA officer, Valerie E. Wilson (also known as Valerie Plame), with members of the press.[3][25]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair

Because of all the public brouhaha and the connection to the Iraq War, someone had to take a fall and it was not going to be Bush, Cheney, Armitage or Rove. But Libbey was not charged with "outing Plame." No one was.

The scandal led to a criminal investigation; no one was charged for the leak itself. Scooter Libby was convicted of lying to investigators.

Id.

If indeed it had been revealed that Libbey had outed Plame, I have to believe Libby would have been at least charged with that. So, the reason that Cheney and Armitage were not charged was not that "it was revealed" that Libbey was the guilty one and the only guilty one. Further, the special prosecutor indicated that someone else had been involved. And Jonathan Turley said that Cheney should have been an unindicted co-conspirator.

http://crooksandliars.com/2007/07/02/jonathan-turley-cheney-should-have-been-an-un-indicted-co-conspirator

Then, while as you say, Libbey got the same sentence as Kirakiou, Bush said Libbey's sentence was clearly excessive and commuted it, but no President said the same about Kirakiou's or commuted it.

Whether the commutation was a decent act on Bush's part or not depends on Bush's motives and I would not speculate about those. I do know that Republicans had made a huge deal of Clinton's pardons and Bush pardoned no one at all. Also, again because of the public brouhaha and the connection to the Iraq War--and maybe also the deal that had been made about Clinton's pardons--a pardon of Libby would have guarantied a huge blowback and maybe Bush wasn't looking for another blowback at that time, especially one with a connection to the Iraq War.

Finally as part of a plea deal, Kirakiou did plead guilty to disclosing the covert status of a CIA agent. Since it was part of a plea deal, of course Kirakiou's attorney did not contest it and I would not assume guilt from a plea deal, given all the charges against him.

[bigtree]

38. the plea could also have been an attempt to shield his wife from the wrath of prosecutors

...as they had forced her to resign her career top analyst position while she was on maternity leave.

[okaawhatever]

39. "I would not assume guilt from a plea deal". Why are you ignoring his confession, emails (which is

why he pled guilty) and his statements of remorse for having done it?
It sounds like you're trying to fit the facts to your preconceived idea of how this happened.

Kiriakou has disputed his intentions and stated he didn't know the CIA agent was undercover at the time. Also, "all the charges against him". There were 4 charges. One for identifying Agent A, one for identifying Agent B (later revealed to be Deuce Martinez), one for violating secrecy, and one for lying to and providing false statements to the CIA regarding the content of his book. Namely, how they tracked Abu Zubaydah using his cell phone. (with no regard for the fact that he would be disclosing to future terrorists the method used)

[merrily]

40. Really? I thought your statements about Cheney, Libby, et al were your attempts to fit the

facts into your preconcieved notions of what happened, but I preferred replying with factual statements and links over going ad hom. Apparently, you have a different preference

The reason I allegedly "ignored" everything but what I addreesed was that I was replying to a post of yours in which the only thing YOU had raised was his lawyer's failure to dispute certain things. You stated that you assumed charges to be true because his lawyer did not dispute them. I replied that it was a plea deal, so of course his lawyer did not dispute it and added that I don't assume guilt from plea deals. (And I don't.) How you turned my statement about plea deals into in response to a specific comment you made into my distorting facts of the Kiriakou case is beyond me.

You seem to want to relitigate the entire Kiriakou case a lot more than you want to discuss Petraeus or whether different people get different kinds of justice, but that is not my goal. Neither is being accused of distorting facts.

But, as long as we're speaking of facts, Kiriakou was not facing only four charges total, as your post claims However, thanks to the aforementioned plea deal, all charges against him under the Espionage Act were dropped. So, yes, as my prior post said, Kiriakou entered into the plea deal because of ALL the charges against him, which, prior to the plea deal, totaled more than four.

[okaawhatever]

41. I took the number of charges straight from the arrest warrant/affidavit. I was wrong about

Scooter Libby's charge. He did not get sentenced for outing Valarie Plame, but rather lying about it. I don't think the issue here is Cheney or Libby. I initially replied to the claim that Kiriakou was charged due to his confirmation of waterboarding. It simply isn't true. And misinforming DUers doesn't do anyone any good. If the GOP had the same level of awareness as Dem voters this country wouldn't have the problems (or the legislators) we do now.

[okaawhatever]

42. Once again I forgot to add the link to the indictment:

http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2012/01/23/kiriakou-complaint.pdf

Also, when I was referring to his lawyers not disputing the charge, I was only talking about the sealed info that supported the claim that revealing the name while the officer was undercover had caused "serious repercussions". I'm not sure of the law, but from the indictment it seems they were not only trying to prove he outed someone, but that the identification had in fact caused harm.

This part I don't remember as well, but the second charge. The charge for revealing Deuce Martinez's identity was dropped because it was discovered that his name had appeared earlier and that Kiriakou wasn't the source. It appears his attorneys did fight at least that charge (and won).

[okaawhatever]

10. Stop with the f$%^ing lies. Kirikaou DEFENDED WATERBOARDING. Afraid of the truth? It isn't too

kind to Mr. Kiriakou. Here it is for you:.

A. KIRIKAOU IS NOT IN JAIL FOR WHISTLEBLOWING. HE BLEW NO WHISTLE. WATERBOARDING WAS EXPOSED BEFORE HE WENT ON TV. ALL HE DID WAS CONFIRM IT. WHEN HE CONFIRMED IT HE ALSO DEFENDED IT.

B. HE IS IN JAIL BECAUSE JUST LIKE SCOOTER LIBBY HE OUTED A CIA AGENT. HE CARED ZERO FOR THE LIFE OF THAT INDIVIDUAL OR HIS FAMILY. HE REVEALED THE INFO TO A REPORTER HE THOUGHT WOULD HELP PROMOTE HIS BOOK.

C. HE GOT THE EXACT SAME SENTENCE SCOOTER LIBBY DID. HIS WAS NOT COMMUTED.

D. HE ALSO LIED TO THE CIA ABOUT THE BOOK HE WROTE AND LAUGHED ABOUT IT IN EMAILS. HE SHOWED ZERO CONCERN FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN HIMSELF AND HIS BOOKS PROFITS WHEN HE DID THAT.

IT SURPRISES ME ZERO THAT YOU FIND HIM TO BE A VICTIM. Kirikaou didn't become an anti-government whistle blower until his lies caught up with him. Now he'll shill for the left the same way he did for the right when he was promoting his book. Seems like you're doing the same thing.

Facts matter.

[bigtree]

15. one opinion

here's another from Marcy Wheeler:

John Kiriakou’s Prosecution Is an Important Precedent to CIA – Senate Intelligence Committee Spat

On several occasions, I have pointed to the arbitrary system our classification system constructs. It asks government employees to spy on their colleagues. It permits agencies to conduct fishing expeditions into personal information as part of the polygraph process. It permits Agencies to selectively approve propaganda under the guise of pre-publication review (most notably in the case of Jose Rodriguez and John Rizzo). By stripping sensitive unclassified jobs of their Merit Board protection, even lower level staffers who don’t receive a clearance-related income boost are now subject to this arbitrary system. And Congress even tried to use pensions as another leverage point against cleared personnel.

The arbitrary nature of this system is perhaps most clear, however, when it comes to prosecutions.

Which is a point John Kiriakou made in an op-ed yesterday. In it, he suggests Leon Panetta and James Cartwright could be sitting next to him in Loretto Prison.

The Espionage Act states: “Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any … information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates … the same to any person not entitled to receive it … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.”

A transcript obtained by the organization Judicial Watch shows that, at a CIA awards ceremony attended by Boal, Panetta did exactly that. The CIA seems to acknowledge that Panetta accidentally revealed the name of the special forces ground commander who led the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, not knowing that the Hollywood screenwriter was part of an audience cleared to hear him speak. But intent is not relevant to Espionage Act enforcement.

U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled in my case that evidence of the accidental release of national defense information was inadmissible, and she added that the government did not have to prove that a leak of classified information actually caused any harm to the United States. In other words, the act of disclosing the kind of broad information covered by the Espionage Act is prosecutable regardless of outcome or motive.

The sensitivity of what Panetta revealed is not in question. The spokesman for the former CIA director said Panetta assumed that everyone present at the time of the speech had proper clearance for such a discussion. When the transcript of the speech was released, more than 90 lines had been redacted, implying that Panetta had disclosed a great deal more classified information than the name of an operative.

[snip]

If an intent to undermine U.S. national security or if identifiable harm to U.S. interests are indeed not relevant to Espionage Act enforcement, then the White House and the Justice Department should be in full froth. Panetta should be having his private life dug in to, sifted and seized as evidence, as happened to me and six others under the Obama administration.

[snip]

If Panetta and Cartwright aren’t accountable while Drake, Kim and I have been crucified for harming U.S. national security — all of us accused of or investigated for the same thing: disclosing classified information to parties not authorized to know it — then what does that say about justice in America or White House hypocrisy?

Kiriakou goes on to call for changes in the Espionage Act to focus on issues of intent and harm.

Kiriakou is, of course, correct that he got punished for things that Panetta and Cartwright have (so far, at least) escaped such levels of punishment for. (I’d also add the unnamed real sources for the UndieBomb 2.0 leak, who are being protected by the scapegoating of Donald Sachtleben.)

But I’d go even further. Given reports that FBI is investigating whether Senate Intelligence Committee staffers violated the law for obtaining proof the Agency they oversee was hiding evidence from it, it’s crucial to remember how Kiriakou’s prosecution came about, which I laid out in this post.

It started when CIA officers claimed that when Gitmo defense attorneys provided photos of their clients torturers to them–having independently discovered their identity–the torturers were put at risk. DOJ didn’t believe it was a security risk; CIA disagreed and went to John Brennan. And after Patrick Fitzgerald was brought in to mediate between DOJ and CIA, the prosecution of John Kiriakou resulted.

As a reminder of where this all started, it’s worth reading this March 15, 2010 Bill Gertz article which was, AFAIK, the first public report of the investigation into the John Adams Project. It describes a March 9, 2010 meeting between Fitzgerald and the CIA.

The dispute prompted a meeting Tuesday at CIA headquarters between U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and senior CIA counterintelligence officials. It is the latest battle between the agency and the department over detainees and interrogations of terrorists.

[snip]

According to U.S. officials familiar with the issue, the current dispute involves Justice Department officials who support an effort led by the American Civil Liberties Union to provide legal aid to military lawyers for the Guantanamo inmates. CIA counterintelligence officials oppose the effort and say giving terrorists photographs of interrogators has exposed CIA personnel and their families to possible terrorist attacks.

[snip]

According to the officials, the dispute centered on discussions for a interagency memorandum that was to be used in briefing President Obama and senior administration officials on the photographs found in Cuba. Justice officials did not share the CIA’s security concerns about the risks posed to CIA interrogators and opposed language on the matter that was contained in the draft memorandum. The memo was being prepared for White House National Security Council aide John Brennan, who was to use it to brief the president.

The CIA insisted on keeping its language describing the case and wanted the memorandum sent forward in that form.

That meeting, of course, would have taken place the day after Fitzgerald was appointed. So immediately after Fitzgerald got put in charge of this investigation, he presumably moderated a fight between DOJ, which didn’t think detainee lawyers pursuing their clients’ torturers via independent means threatened to expose the torturers’ identity directly, and CIA, which apparently claimed to be worried.

What happened with Kiriakou’s sentencing today is many things. But it started as–and is still fundamentally a result of–an effort on the part of CIA to ensure that none of its torturers ever be held accountable for their acts, to ensure that the subjects of their torture never gain any legal foothold to hold them accountable.


read more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/03/10/john-kiriakous-prosecution-is-an-important-precedent-to-cia-senate-intelligence-committee-spat/#more-41464

[okaawhatever]

17. Sorry, couldn't read too far into that before the gag reflex kicked in. I'm not interested in this

person's opinion. I'm interested in FACTS. Perhaps you should be.

[bigtree]

18. plenty of 'facts' there for you to bother reading

...I'm not going to feign surprise that you've skirted them and are relying on ridicule for the basis of your incomplete and selective argument.

[LawDeeDah]

12. Petraus is Obama's friend? Are you sure?

I think he is Hillary and Bill's friend, not Obama's. Petraus and Hillary were working behind the President's back, around the time Bill dog whistled and practically out and out said Obama was a 'wuss' on Syria.

The President wouldn't publicly diss Petraus, doesn't mean he is buds with the nozzle.

I would like to see Petraus get the punishment he deserves, the reckless ratfucking meglomanical traitor belongs behind bars.

[riderinthestorm]

14. Yes. My understanding of all I've read is they were friends

http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/how-the-white-house-played-petraeus-20110622

"While the relationship between Obama and Petraeus is solid, there's friction between staff members"....

[merrily]

26. Chelsea Manning?

[jmowreader]

32. If he really did it, lock him up

Sauce for the goose, right?

I would prefer to not be the Queen of Hearts; let's get the verdict first then work on the sentence.

[Fumesucker]

3. I'm so old..

I can remember this MoveOn ad.

[merrily]

27. So, we're "flexible." What's your point?

j/k I totally get your point and agree.

[bigtree]

7. »

[Rex]

8. There always seems to be at least two levels of justice in America.

One level for non-club members another for club members and an even laxer one for gold card members. Platinum card holders never see the inside of a courtroom.

[Electric Monk]

25. There is no Platinum like Colbert Platinum ;)

http://splitsider.com/2014/12/behold-the-final-colbert-platinum-segment/

[merrily]

30. And Colbert (the man) should know about Platinum, as Colbert (the character) so often told us.

[merrily]

28. And a third level (also at least) for those who get pardoned.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

11. "Why you bringing up old shit?" - (Classic Iraq invasión defense) nt

[merrily]

31. What old stuff? Everything Old is New Again.

Everything Old Is New Again

When trumpets were mellow
And every gal only had one fellow
No need to remember when
Cause everything old is new again

Dancin' at ya
Long Island Jazz Age parties
Waiter, let me have some more Bacardis
Let's order now what they ordered then
Cause everything old is new again

Get out your white suit,
your tap shoes and tails
Let's go backwards when forward fails
And movie stars that you thought were long dead,
Now are framed beside your bed

Don't throw the past away
You might need it some rainy day
Dreams can come true again
When everything old is new again

Get out your white suit,
your tap shoes and tails
Let's go backwards when all else fails
Leave Greta Garbo alone
Be a movie star on your own

And don't throw
Don't throw the past away
We're all gonna need it some rainy day
Dreams can come true again
When everything old is new again

I might fall in love with war in Iraq you again

http://www.lyricsmania.com/everything_old_is_new_again_lyrics_all_that_jazz.html

[johnnyreb]

21. k&r

[blm]

33. Kick -

.

[Blue_Tires]

37. Can't they recall him to active duty and court-martial him?