contributions

I have a call in to Bob Luskin, Karl Rove’s lawyer, but I’m not holding my breath for a call back. He knows I know too much, since I broke the story last week that his client is one of the secret sources Matt Cooper has been protecting for the last two years. I have three questions for Luskin:
Q: You’ve said Rove is not a target of the investigation. Is he a subject of the investigation?
Q: Since Time delivered its e-mails to the prosecutor on Friday, have you asked the prosecutor (…)

Things heated up over the Independence Day weekend regarding Karl Rove’s involvement with the leaking of a secret CIA agent’s identity. The problem is that the mainstream media is NOT touching the Rove angle with a proverbial 10 foot poll. Although there is clearly something going on here, the big shots of big media are treating Rove like he’s the most feared man in the country. It appears that the only way this story is going to stay alive is if the blogosphere keeps it alive.
For weeks (…)

The Bush Administration is scrambling behind the scenes to stop a criminal indictment against Presidential advisor Karl Rove for disclosing classified information to reporters in an attempt to discredit a White House critic.
Time Magazine emails turned over to a grand jury show Rove leaked CIA Operative Valerie Plame’s name to journalists after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, went public with claims the Bush Administration knowing used false information to justify the invasion of (…)

July 5, 2005 - On March 16, 2003, Bush, Blair and Aznar of Spain met on the Portuguese island of Terceira in the Azores and declared war on Iraq at a time of their "choosing" unless President Saddam Hussein and his two sons leave Iraq. On March 20, 2003, without explicit authorisation of the UN Security Council and in violation of international law, and against the majority of the world public opinion, the US and Britain attacked Iraq "pre-emptively".
The violent attack was one of the most (…)

A remarkable proportion of the violence taking place in Iraq is regularly credited to the Jordanian Ahmad al-Khalayleh, better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and his organization Al Qaeda in Iraq. Sometimes it seems no car bomb goes off, no ambush occurs that isn’t claimed in his name or attributed to him by the Bush administration. Bush and his top officials have, in fact, made good use of him, lifting his reputed feats of terrorism to epic, even mythic, proportions (much aided by various (…)

It’s hard to imagine how Karl Rove’s appearance could fit his role any more perfectly than it does.
Portly, balding, malicious, simpering, he looks like a cross between Sesame Street’s Mr. Hooper and the Third Reich’s Heinrich Himmler. And he acts like a cross between Heinrich Himmler and Henry Kissinger. Whom he also looks like. And not in a good way.
Oh yeah, he’s a man who compromised national security, putting lives of American agents in danger. Wait, I forgot a word there. What (…)

First Person Commentaries, Paolo Pontoniere, Pacific News Service, Jul 05, 2005 Editor’s Note: Three U.S. servicemen living in Canada tell why they refused to serve in Iraq.
Jeremy Hinzman, 26
TORONTO—My name is Jeremy Hinzman. I was a specialist with the 82nd Airborne division.
I’m from South Dakota, from an area where there were not many jobs. I went through school believing that you got to be part of something bigger than yourself. I was also looking for structure and a sense of (…)

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
I sent the following letter to a reporter at The New York Times after reading: . The Times changed the heading of the article after I wrote the letter.
A BuzzFlash Reader
* * *
RE: "Spy at Center of Leak Case Still in Shadow" [July 5]
Dear Scott Shane,
You write: "the investigation into the leak of a covert C.I.A. officer’s name has unfolded clamorously in the nation’s capital, with partisan brawling on talk shows..."
The only ones "brawling" are (…)

NASA Landsat 7 image showing effects of Coalition bombing in Baghdad, 2 April 2003.
Before the 2003 American invasion the Bush administration declared that the strategy of "Shock and Awe" bombing would be used to assault Iraq. Driving through Baghdad during my stay here in the last month has allowed me to see some of the destruction caused by the aerial bombardment, which preceded the US invasion. One thing that struck me as odd was a bombed out government run shopping mall, which (…)

A man who taught with Rove, and considers him a friend, writes that in the Valerie Plame case, Rove is using journalists, and the First Amendment, "to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law." That’s why neither reporters Cooper and Miller, nor their publications, should protect Rove (or anyone else) "through an undiscerning, blanket use of the First Amendment that weakens its protections by its gross misuse."
By Bill Israel
(July 05, 2005) — In 99.9 percent of (…)