Re: Sofia, Mamajuana, 9/11 and Saddam. (Hah - never thought someone could bunch those names together like that, huh;?-)
I'm still thinking about this - it's still occupying me.
First, I realised I took a long detour to make my point, when there was also a simple straightforward answer.
MJ wrote: it is a "well-established fact" that there was no link; Sofia wrote back, prove it. Well,
US Congress exhaustively researched all the aspects and links concerning the 9/11 attacks. It couldnt find evidence of any link, whatsoever, that incriminated the Saddam regime in any way. In the entire 900 page tome of a report, Saddam's Iraq is only mentioned
twice; once on a link that was shown wrong, and once on a link that didnt go nowhere, was based on no evidence. Thats it. It was researched, exhaustively, by your own Congress no less - and nothing was found. I dont know if thats "well-established fact" enough. The NRC newspaper here concluded, in any case, that "The 900 page report, on which members of the Senate and the House have worked together, also confirms that there is no connection between the terrorist network Al-Qaeda [..] and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein", so MJ seems to be in good company.
Then there's the detour I made. I was reading an article this morning, about a wholly unrelated matter, and I recognised my argument:
yes - thats what I meant.
The article concerned a parliamentary debate here between two people you luckily wont know: Donner, the Christian-Democrat Minister of Justice, and Eerdmans, the speaker of the List Fortuyn party. You might know that a politician was shot here last year, Pim Fortuyn; Eerdman's party is named after him. The perpetrator has been identified: Volkert van der Graaf, an environmentalist who apparently wanted to save Holland from the new right-wing danger. Now the List Fortuyn cant believe that something so shattering can really have been the work of this one guy. They speak of vast conspiracies, involving much of "the left-wing church", or the Dutch secret service, or foreign agents. They ask why Fortuyn wasnt protected better (answer: because he declined to be). Now Parliament installed a commission last year which extensively investigated the matter. It published a tome of a report, which was then accepted by Parliament (including the List Fortuyn). It concluded that the protection had been imperfect, but that none of the suggested secret service links et cetera was born out by any proof.
Now here Eerdmans is, debating Donner, insisting that there is no proof that the secret service
wasnt tapping Fortuyn's phone, that
we dont know what all might have happened. Donner rebuked him sternly. Quote: "it is impossible to prove someone was
not involved". But there has been a report, all the links suggested thus far have been researched, they came up with naught, the List Fortuyn accepted the report. "If you want to keep the book open", Donner reprimanded Eerdmans, "at least do it in a dignified manner". Continuing to raise the spectre of various involvements if you have no new evidence to underbuild such links, whatsoever, is undignified - irresponsible, was the message implied.
This is what the "well established fact" is about, in my view (and you may prefer to talk only to MJ, Sofia, but if you insist that
only she should have answered your point you should have sent a PM). Not just a bunch of journalists, but Congress itself researched 9/11, and every link to Saddam's Iraq that had been suggested by government circles was shown to have no base in evidence, whatsoever. Well-established fact, that. Bush's Republicans accepted this report too. To now keep going on that there "might well have been a link"
without providing any new evidence on the matter, is undignified, and its a shame you have no Donner to point that out to your Cheney. When he can share new evidence with us, then we can
always still "open the book" again.
