The Sandy Berger document theft report is out.
“My staff’s investigation reveals that President Clinton’s former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger compromised national security much more than originally disclosed,”
Davis said. “It is now also clear that Mr. Berger was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to compromise national security, apparently for his own convenience. “The 9/11 Commission relied on incomplete and misleading information regarding its access to documents Mr. Berger reviewed. No one ever told the Commission that Mr. Berger had access to original documents that he could have taken without detection.
“We now know that Mr. Berger left stolen highly classified documents at a construction site to avoid detection. We know that Mr. Berger insisted on privacy at times to allow him to conceal documents that he stole. One witness with a very high security clearance believed he saw Berger concealing documents in his socks.
Here’s my own posting on the Sandy Burglar outrage:
http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2007/01/berger-compromised-national-security.html
This is far more serious than the MSM wants to believe, or wants the people to believe. Looks like the MSM wants to protect Clinton, too, doesn’t it?
Hell, it makes Watergate look like a mere college prank!
The problem with Kyoto
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Having had a chance to do some research into the Kyoto accord, I have a question for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.
Why do you support a bizarre United Nations treaty that is mainly concerned with transferring billions of dollars from the First World (i.e. us) to the Third World over a period of decades, without any guarantees this will lower the man-made greenhouse gas emissions you say are the main cause of global warming?
Start delving into the Kyoto accord and you’ll quickly discover it has very little to do with sensible things like practising meaningful energy conservation here in Canada, or reducing our heavy reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.
And plenty to do with having “Annex I” countries (like us) ship big bags full of our money to undeveloped and underdeveloped nations who may, or may not, use said funds to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions.
Whatever they do, Kyoto contains no provisions to compel those nations to live up to their word when Canadians and others, either as taxpayers or consumers, bankroll projects abroad to reduce greenhouse gases.
In terms of emission targets, Kyoto rewards notorious polluters like Russia and other former Eastern bloc nations (can you say “Chernobyl”?) for the fact their already inefficient economies collapsed in the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union fell apart.
And it punishes “Annex I” countries, like Canada, for having allegedly disproportionately contributed to the global warming crisis — long before anyone knew it was a crisis.
While underdeveloped nations under Kyoto have room to emit more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than we do, the treaty’s solution is to allow us and other “Annex I” countries to purchase and trade “emission credits” from them and each other.
This means, in effect, paying a surtax for generations to other countries for the right to continue emitting greenhouse gases in our own country, above what would otherwise be the acceptable levels set by Kyoto. That’s what buying “hot air” from, say, Russia, actually means.
The theory is that since global warming is a global problem, it doesn’t matter which countries emit greenhouse gases as long as total emissions go down, which is all well and good, except that Kyoto contains no provisions to ensure emissions go down.
And here’s a question just for the Liberals and former PM Jean Chretien, who signed and ratified Kyoto.
How, exactly, did we end up in a big, cold northern country agreeing to the impossible task of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012 (under the Liberals they went up 30%) while Australia, another first-world nation, which doesn’t have our cold weather extremes, is allowed to increase its emissions by 8%. That is, if it had ever signed Kyoto, which it didn’t.
All this is not to mention the inconvenient truth that the last time the UN got involved in an international agreement involving billions of dollars for the alleged global good, it was the oil-for-food program in Iraq. And we all know what a corrupt mess that became.
Then there’s the fact some of Kyoto’s strongest supporters say its present greenhouse gas emission targets would have to be strengthened by a factor of 12 to do any good.
And that some of the most radical climate change scientists in the world say that in order to meet the threat posed by global warming, we need to invest massively in nuclear power (which doesn’t produce greenhouse gases, but does produce nuclear waste).
As I recall, none of this was ever mentioned in those “take the one tonne challenge” ads the Liberals paid for with our money before they were tossed from power.
As for Harper, why do you now support a treaty which you surely must know is a mess and why are you ready to have (shudder) NDP leader Jack Layton make things even worse? Other than getting yourself re-elected, that is.
• You can e-mail Lorrie Goldstein at lorrie.goldstein@tor.sunpub.com
The 9/11 Commission didn’t get all the dope on Berger because of the first rule of professional bureaucrats cum politicians is to CYA. Cover Your A**!
You make sure the trail never leads back to you; and you always protect your boss.
Reminds me of Corriveau’s testimony before the Gomery Commission when C. was asked by justice Gomery:
“You won the lottery of your lifetime and you don’t remember the day or circumstances?”
Both instances of complete farce and mockery.
Just another brood of vipers slithering away from the the shining light of day.
The real question is what documents did he take, what did they say and who would their “disappearance” beenfit? Berger? Clinton? both?
It is very odd….mind you he doesnt look anywhere near as good as fawn hall?? from Iran contra who stuffed them in her stockings…
It is treason and Berger should be shot!
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006641.htm
Kate,
I know your all about fairness so thought the above mea culpa from Michelle Malkin would interest you. Brit Hume made a similar apology around January 4th as well.
And kevink – if you search the posts here, you’ll discover that the only one that mentioned the original story has already been updated.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Pay no attention to the man behind Sandy.
Watch the Dems and the MSM close ranks around one of their own. Same old, same old.
Well, the theft report is out, but it isn’t really being reported in, say the New York Times, the Washington Post, or even the Wall Street Journal, nor on CNN, CBS, etc. Until it is, nothing much is going to happen.
from bollocks reference guide ‘mea culpa for dummies’
= huge leap in credibility when inevitable errors are found and corrected amongst the THOUSANDS of messages posted.
this selective failure to remember reminds me of the jacobek situation in hogtown: he couldnt ‘remember’ where a $25,000 cheque came from, suggesting maybe it was from his mother or some such nonsense.
they were investigating kickbacks related to overpriced computer purchases and purchasing agents having affairs with the vendor etc etc.
couldnt ‘remember’ where the equivalent of an entire year’s worth of mortgage payments came from.
but apparently he felt he had the mental faculties to run the entire city as mayor and ran for election at that time.
25 years after clinton’s death, the truth will finally come out about how he supported OBL, his affairs, and the Berger thefts. If he had acted like a President should have, instead of the gigalo he was, Iraq would never have happened.
Fred thinks this post is about Harper and Kyoto!!
Confused Fred?
P/S you forgot to blame Bush!
Hmm, I guess they are getting soft on national security after all. Clinton would have put him away for years if it had happened on his watch.
Unless of course, this is really a a piece of scrap thrown to the right wingers who wait in the bushies salivating for more evidence of the foulness of anything with even the faintest odour of scandal. While their own right wing darlings undermine, lie, steal and destroy the entire country. pathetic, but not surprising. Intelligent observation of things really going on, now that would be a surprise.
Good Lord, steve d got loose again.
Mary T,
I think it is 30 years actually. The watergate stuff really didnt come out until a few years ago and that would put it at 30.
Of course if Hillary gets in you can imagine that those documents will reclassified for another 15.
Clinton just turned 60….so he will be in his late 70’s when this stuff come out……..Bush will be in his mid 80’s when the Sept 11 stuff comes out.
We all have a long time to wait.
The Iranian revolutionary stuff under carter should come out in 2 to 3 years….that will be interesting, then Grenada, Iran Contra etc a couple of years after that.
Should be an interesting time to be a presidential historian.
And I first thought I’d read:
“…conceal documents in his stole”
Mark
Ottawa
What’s next..vince Foster actually DID commit suicide?