giddyup, President Bush should hire you for his 2004 campaign. You'd be the best spin machine they've ever had.
Andy, you really seem like a pretty reasonable guy, so I'm quite surprised at how you seem to so willfully distort and misrepresent the President's words. reread the section on Iraq in it's entirety and see how he builds the case: those that do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. we have learned that appeasement, whether with Hitler, Saddam, or al Queda, does not work. these are not administratin claims, it's history, documented by the UN. Once again, he's making the UN's case for it. If Saddam had destroyed his WMD all he had to do was present the evidence, and Bush's entire case would have evaporated. to claim that WMD never existed, as you have, is laughable. their existence was exhaustively documented by the UN (chem/bio). I find it curious that you'd more readily accept Saddam's "the dog ate my homework" rationale for why there was no paper work, rather than the Bush administration's charges. once again, the UN's case, the UN's numbers, the UN's evidence. he says that Iraq has the materials to produce these agents, not that they have already done so. once again, why not just demonstrate he's destroyed these weapons, cutting the admin's case off at the knees? the IAEA, a UN agency, confirmed that Iraq had a nuclear program. why is this so much less important than those 16 words? what happened to that program? did it just evaporate? was the IAEA wrong? did they lie? why doesn't this make you nervous? is there another explanation? Andy? Sam? VeggieMan? do you distrust Bush so much that that you'd more readily accept the explanations of a psychotic, homicidal, delusional dictator who has a history of genocide than the President of the US? The links to terrorists, including members of Hammas and al Queda are now well documented. He isn't trying to link iraq to 9/11, but to demonstrate the potential of Saddam, his weapons programs, and his ties to terrorists. This is the heart of the case. Bush, and members of the administration have said over and over again that 9/11 changed how they viewed existing threats. would you be comfortable today, knowing what happened on 9/11, knowing what Saddam's capabilities are, knowing of his ties to terrorists, knowing of his constant, consistent, flauting of UN resolutions, knowing of his history of murdering his own people and invading his neighbors, would you be comfortable with all this and a president who waited for another 9/11 before acting??? do you think there's another choice? should we entrust our safety, that of our children, to the UN and the capriciousness of the French? are you comfortable with that? and yes, just so there's no mistake about the type of man Saddam really is, he's also murdered, raped, and tortured his people, including women and children. is this our sole rationale for this war? no, but can we afford to ignore it, along with everything else we know about Saddam? will the world be a better place, and the US a safer place, with Saddam disarmed and removed from power? well?
I already posted my comments on the SOU speech and you did not respond. You keep accusing me of believing Saddam over Bush when you don't seem to get that I believe the FACTS over Bush's misstatements, exaggerations, and lies. The facts are that we accused Saddam of having WMDs, we told the American people and the world "trust us, we have the best intelligence there is," and we invaded a country based on false data. Spin it how you want, but the facts are still there. I am not distorting the President's words, the President used his words to willfully distort and misrepresent the facts. If Bush did not know that his data was false, then whoever gave him the data needs to be sacked. If he knew that his data was false, then he needs to be sacked. Add to all of this the erosion of our civil liberties (PATRIOT Act), the administration ignoring in-house felonies (Plame affair), the "revision" of EPA clean air rules, and the deliberate attempts to withhold information from 9/11 to simple FOIA requests and I see an administration that plays fast and loose with the truth. We already had a President who played fast and loose with the truth and he was darn near crucified for it and this President has violated (or ignored violations of) far more trust than Clinton ever did. I was pissed when Clinton lied to me, and I am just as pissed that Bush has done it now. He was supposed to "bring integrity back to the White House" and instead he has made the White House a haven of secrecy and deceit.
So stop saying that he lied. You're not even sure. Go back to the SOTU2003. It deals with much more than WMDs. Operation Iraqi Freedom. RM95: How much does that job pay? Another job I could handle is a dog walker. I'm good at fending off the attack dogs.
I never said that he willfully and knowingly lied, but when you say things that are not true, you are lying. Go back to all the talking heads shows and statements BEFORE the SOTU. They were ALL about the WMDs and the case made for war was also mostly about WMDs. I could name one of my turds Queen of England, but that does not mean it will be on a throne (in maybe, but not on) anytime soon.
Originally posted by andymoon: I never said that he willfully and knowingly lied, but when you say things that are not true, you are lying. <B>That's an unusual definition you have there. It would seem to be politically motivated.</b> Go back to all the talking heads shows and statements BEFORE the SOTU. They were ALL about the WMDs and the case made for war was also mostly about WMDs. <b>Talking Head shows are not scripted that are based on issues raised and questions asked. Talking heads have to address the issue raised and answer the questions asked. Oh, another thing... the other talking head is usually a political opponent. Like I said, clever politicking.</b> I could name one of my turds Queen of England, but that does not mean it will be on a throne (in maybe, but not on) anytime soon. <b>You're much too smart to stand by that silly analogy. Operation Iraqi Freedom was a world news event that was covered by embedded journalists and journalists from around the world. It happened on a world stage and I suppose and hope that you do your "reading" all by yourself!</b>
One more time with feeling; Webster's Dictionary, Revised Edition,: ly-ing 1. To tell a lie. 2. To give a false impression. There is no doubt whatsoever that Bush et a gave a false impression. I find it incredible that people are still trying to spin this, but oh well, One by one... A) The numbers don't lie argument, or as giddy recently put it; The numbers have never added up...if you credit the US figures from a decade ago, and disallow any loss due to degradation, loss, misfiling, etc. It should be noted that the US loses more than is missing in Iraq, each and every year, due to those same causes. B ) The cause for war, or, as some would have it, Quite simply, Gearge Bush, many times, including in the state of the Union address, said that if Saddam disarmed, there would be no war. ". But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. " That was the cause, plain and simple. There were other benefits mentioned for invading Iraq, but that was the sole cause of the war as it was given to the population of the country and the world. Ironically, posters in here refuse to ackowledge this, whereas several administration members and supporting memebers of the Houses admit it. But forget that...it's simple linear logic. If Bush says we go to war for A, if Saddam does A, we will not go to war, then A is and has to be the cause for war. In this case, A is WMD's. I seriously think that poeople who keep trying to deny this are only making themselves look like ostriches. There are posters with whom I disagree, like Hayes, who says that, while WMD's were the acknowledged cause, for him the humanitarian reasons were sufficient. Now while this avoids the whole issue of the accountability of the administration, deception, etc., at least it admits whiat is obvious; whether or not you like it, WMDs were the given cause for this war. But also, for those trying to spin in the mud, think of the timetable...Iraq was on the backburner, yes? 9-11 happens...and then we said that we had found out that Saddam had gotten WMDs...urgency, must go to war to protect ourselves. That would make sense, yes? Conversely....using your rationale...were we saying that we had suddenly found out about his being a tyrant? Had we recently gotten teports about the gassings back in the 80's? 9-11 coupled with new info on WMDs in the hands of the likes of Saddam = need to go to war. Old info on Saddam's murderous regime hardly equates to the same thing. We had known about his pracitces for a long time, in that the worst periods of it happened when he was our puppet, and we witnessed much of it first hand... re: the name...please...I could give you a list of hundreds of invasion names, all are grandiose, and have only a little bearing on the purpose of the war. ' Sea Lion...Barbarossa...Dessert Storm...Archangel...' etc. etc. If you have any understanding of military hostory, among the weak arguments presented to divert from the real cause for this war, this is the weakest. C)...I don;t even know what to call this kind of revisionism; There are so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to start. There are the established facts...as already shown, or the fact that WMD's were cited countless times as the cause for war by Bush, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Rice, Cheney, etc....there is the fact that if, as giddy siggests, this was the critics doing, then the critics knew beforehand that we would find no WMDs, which was pretty damned clever of them indeed. How did the critics know the intel on the WMDs would be sketchy, in that, at the time, that was the only info we had? Nothing in this statement is supportable. This is so far from reality it's scary. Again, if we said no WMD's, no war...how could it be 'less about WMD's.'? D) What we now know happened. Yo answer giddy's question, stated There are several ways of looking at it, and I'll address them. First and foremost is the events as happend, that we know as fact: Cheney, Wolfowitz et al, for several reasons, had come into this administration, as is well known, already looking at an invasion of Iraq as desirable. 9-11 happens, and somehow the focus gets shifted away from Osama, and towards Saddam. This is well known as well. Let's look at what else is known, in context... * Cheney establishes a previously non-existant group whose purpose is to pour over intelligence reports, largely focusing on Iraq, originally without official designation, but later called the Operation of Special Plans. Cheney, Wolfowitz and others had been deeply dismayed by the US intelligence community's failure to spot the fact that Saddam had had an active nuclear development program over a decade back, and decided that our intel on Iraq was too soft, and wanted to have an organization which would examine the intel with the purpose of seeing the threat that Saddam posed. * A now ackowledged combative relationship begins to develop between Cheney, Rummy and the Pentagon, and the O.S.P. on one side and Powell, State, and the intelligence community on the other over Iraq. There are heated divisions on such issues as whether or not to establish a provisional government of ex-patriated Iraqis, on how to present/frame the case for war, on the reliability of information from said ex-patriots who have a vested interest in there being an invasion, etc. * Diplomatic and intelligence officials of high standing who had served under administrations of both parties start resigning and making public statements that they were amazed and frightened by the behaviour of the administration towards intelligence about Iraq...that the White House was making it known that they were only interested in intelligence which supported their position on Iraq, and saw intel which didn't as counter-productive and 'soft'. Intel is now told to find, and does, rumours of Saddam building WMDs, Saddam being connected to 9-11, etc. This is the intel which eventually reaches Bush et al, as per design. * The administration begins making many of the now infamous comments about Iraqi WMD's, pursuit of nukes, etc. Powell's statement's to the UN have since been ackowledged by his former aides ( who are Republicans and support Powell) as having been known to be false. Said aides also state that there was an ongoing pressure from Cheney, Rummy, et al, and the aide described Powell's declaration of facts he knew to be false ( like the tubes) as him 'being the good soldier'. We also make the statemetn about uranium that we knew to be false, and statements about Saddam linking up with terrorists to threaten the US which completely contradicts the intelligence community's assessment, as evident in the NIE report. These are all 'lies'. * Public opinion, which previously was agains tthe war, violnetly swings in support when the spectre of nukes is rasied. Any examination of the timetable and the polls will show this to anyone of a remotely open mind. So, as giddy asked, why did Bush make claims he knew to be false? There are several answers, from less to more cynical; 1) He felt he was only being deceptive about how much we could actually claim to know, while being pretty positive that the WMD's and 9-11 connections were there. It is even possible that Bush was out of the loop re: the O.S.P. etc.'s demands for selective intel, and thinks that what he's seeing is all there is. 2) There were other, less sellable reasons that Bush, CHeney, Wolfowitz et al wanted to go into Iraq ( such as the reverse domino, payback for GW1/assassination of daddy plan, etc.) which Bush believed to be legitimate, if not the kind that the country would support. So they go with the fear factor, heightened since 9-11, believing them to be highly likely, but in the end less important than getting it done. 3) They believed that they could ultimately spin it any way they wanted. They believed that, post 9-11, the American people were willing to buy anything packaged as protection, and the fact that the majority has believed that Saddam was behind 9-11, that we had found WMDs, that the world supprted the invasion, and that significant portions of the country have believed that WMDs were used against us in the war, etc. sort of backs up this position. Additionally, once we made this an us against the world kind of thing, history suggest that most Americans would rather ignore the truth than admit that we were wrong and everyone else was right. This rasies the shadow of the national insecurity complex that we had following VietNam, and that we didn't get out from under until Reagan taught us to agains believe that we were better than everyone else. If the alternative is going back to pre-Reagan, many American would rather swallow a pack of lies than swallow their pride before the likes of the French. That we were willing to believe some the completely unsubstantiated things that we have does go far to prove how much we want to believe we're right, and how far we'll go to do so. There are other, even more skeptical possibilites, but I believe that it is one of, or all of thse three. I suspect that Bush thought it extremely probable that Saddam had WMDs, and was, in his opinion, merely overstating the case of what we KNEW, believing the conclusion the fudged facts would lead us to to be true. I also believe that they thought it likely that they'd be able to dodge the bullet even in the unlikely event that no WMDs were found, and I also beleive that there was a large power within the administration which was making very selective use of intelligence because the decision to go to war was made, and the facts fit in afterwards, rather than the reverse. Whether Bush was a part of this process or a victim of it, I can't say. E) Imminent threat: as said by Basso:
Edit: In point E, after the quotation ending in " option", the remaining words are mine. Misplaced quotation brackets.
Originally posted by MacBeth: One more time with feeling; Webster's Dictionary, Revised Edition,: ly-ing 1. To tell a lie. 2. To give a false impression. There is no doubt whatsoever that Bush et a gave a false impression. I find it incredible that people are still trying to spin this, but oh well, One by one... <b>Did Bush knowingly give a false impression, though? Amidst certainly conflicting intel, burdened by the responsibility to protect the nation, and motivated by a tradition of setting the world right did Bush knowingly and willingly give a false impression? Or did some of his assertions turn out to be in error?</b> A) The numbers don't lie argument, or as giddy recently put it; The numbers have never added up...if you credit the US figures from a decade ago, and disallow any loss due to degradation, loss, misfiling, etc. It should be noted that the US loses more than is missing in Iraq, each and every year, due to those same causes. <b>We're not the ones using it against our own citizens. We're not the ones under UN sanctions. How much of the losses can you attribute to natural causes versus political ones? With certainty please!</b> B ) The cause for war, or, as some would have it, Quite simply, Gearge Bush, many times, including in the state of the Union address, said that if Saddam disarmed, there would be no war. ". But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. " That was the cause, plain and simple. There were other benefits mentioned for invading Iraq, but that was the sole cause of the war as it was given to the population of the country and the world. Ironically, posters in here refuse to ackowledge this, whereas several administration members and supporting memebers of the Houses admit it. But forget that...it's simple linear logic. If Bush says we go to war for A, if Saddam does A, we will not go to war, then A is and has to be the cause for war. In this case, A is WMD's. I seriously think that poeople who keep trying to deny this are only making themselves look like ostriches. There are posters with whom I disagree, like Hayes, who says that, while WMD's were the acknowledged cause, for him the humanitarian reasons were sufficient. Now while this avoids the whole issue of the accountability of the administration, deception, etc., at least it admits whiat is obvious; whether or not you like it, WMDs were the given cause for this war. <b>I thought GWB's most on-point language in the SOTU2003 was the part about the inspectors going on a Scavenger Hunt. That was the level of cooperation. Boy, if that doesn't inspire confidence, I don't know what will! Being forthcoming on the WMDs was not the sole cause for going to war but it was the sole cause for averting it. The reason is not complex: that's what threatens those of us outside of Saddam's terrorizing grip. I'm saddened and disheartened by the brutal abuse he has inflicted on his people for 30 years, but I am not threatened by it.</b> But also, for those trying to spin in the mud, think of the timetable...Iraq was on the backburner, yes? 9-11 happens...and then we said that we had found out that Saddam had gotten WMDs...urgency, must go to war to protect ourselves. That would make sense, yes? <b>We knew he had had WMDs for a long time... or are you talking about nuclear WMDs. See, there it is happening again. What kind of WMDs did you mean here?</b> Conversely....using your rationale...were we saying that we had suddenly found out about his being a tyrant? Had we recently gotten teports about the gassings back in the 80's? 9-11 coupled with new info on WMDs in the hands of the likes of Saddam = need to go to war. Old info on Saddam's murderous regime hardly equates to the same thing. We had known about his pracitces for a long time, in that the worst periods of it happened when he was our puppet, and we witnessed much of it first hand... <b>No one said that we had recently discovered his tyranny. What can I say? GWB was not the president during those times of horror. As I suggested the other day, maybe he is determined to redress the wrongs of the past. Shouldn't he be applauded for that rather than vilified?</b> re: the name...please...I could give you a list of hundreds of invasion names, all are grandiose, and have only a little bearing on the purpose of the war. ' Sea Lion...Barbarossa...Dessert Storm...Archangel...' etc. etc. If you have any understanding of military hostory, among the weak arguments presented to divert from the real cause for this war, this is the weakest. <b>Operation Iraqi Freedom has no bearing on this war and is not reflective of the outcome? Saddam is uprooted. His supporters are captured, dead, and dispersed. Iraq is on the rocky road to democratic stabilization. I would say that it is a rather on-point title.</b> C)...I don;t even know what to call this kind of revisionism; There are so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to start. There are the established facts...as already shown, or the fact that WMD's were cited countless times as the cause for war by Bush, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Rice, Cheney, etc....there is the fact that if, as giddy siggests, this was the critics doing, then the critics knew beforehand that we would find no WMDs, which was pretty damned clever of them indeed. How did the critics know the intel on the WMDs would be sketchy, in that, at the time, that was the only info we had? Nothing in this statement is supportable. This is so far from reality it's scary. Again, if we said no WMD's, no war...how could it be 'less about WMD's.'? <b>If you are asserting that the Administration knew that the intel for all WMDs was sketchy, doesn't it follow that others (i.e. Democrats) on intelligence committees knew it as well? Don't you imagine that the intel is actually (most of the time) conflicting? One report says one thing; another says another opposite thing. Isn't almost all of this kind of intel sketchy? This is a foreign land where we are not welcomed. The inspectors had been booted for years. This is the reality. How can you conclude anything else. We are not looking back on history here; this is ongoing present with hostiles.</b> D) What we now know happened. Yo answer giddy's question, stated There are several ways of looking at it, and I'll address them. First and foremost is the events as happend, that we know as fact: Cheney, Wolfowitz et al, for several reasons, had come into this administration, as is well known, already looking at an invasion of Iraq as desirable. 9-11 happens, and somehow the focus gets shifted away from Osama, and towards Saddam. This is well known as well. Let's look at what else is known, in context... * Cheney establishes a previously non-existant group whose purpose is to pour over intelligence reports, largely focusing on Iraq, originally without official designation, but later called the Operation of Special Plans. Cheney, Wolfowitz and others had been deeply dismayed by the US intelligence community's failure to spot the fact that Saddam had had an active nuclear development program over a decade back, and decided that our intel on Iraq was too soft, and wanted to have an organization which would examine the intel with the purpose of seeing the threat that Saddam posed. * A now ackowledged combative relationship begins to develop between Cheney, Rummy and the Pentagon, and the O.S.P. on one side and Powell, State, and the intelligence community on the other over Iraq. There are heated divisions on such issues as whether or not to establish a provisional government of ex-patriated Iraqis, on how to present/frame the case for war, on the reliability of information from said ex-patriots who have a vested interest in there being an invasion, etc. * Diplomatic and intelligence officials of high standing who had served under administrations of both parties start resigning and making public statements that they were amazed and frightened by the behaviour of the administration towards intelligence about Iraq...that the White House was making it known that they were only interested in intelligence which supported their position on Iraq, and saw intel which didn't as counter-productive and 'soft'. Intel is now told to find, and does, rumours of Saddam building WMDs, Saddam being connected to 9-11, etc. This is the intel which eventually reaches Bush et al, as per design. * The administration begins making many of the now infamous comments about Iraqi WMD's, pursuit of nukes, etc. Powell's statement's to the UN have since been ackowledged by his former aides ( who are Republicans and support Powell) as having been known to be false. Said aides also state that there was an ongoing pressure from Cheney, Rummy, et al, and the aide described Powell's declaration of facts he knew to be false ( like the tubes) as him 'being the good soldier'. We also make the statemetn about uranium that we knew to be false, and statements about Saddam linking up with terrorists to threaten the US which completely contradicts the intelligence community's assessment, as evident in the NIE report. These are all 'lies'. * Public opinion, which previously was agains tthe war, violnetly swings in support when the spectre of nukes is rasied. Any examination of the timetable and the polls will show this to anyone of a remotely open mind. So, as giddy asked, why did Bush make claims he knew to be false? There are several answers, from less to more cynical; 1) He felt he was only being deceptive about how much we could actually claim to know, while being pretty positive that the WMD's and 9-11 connections were there. It is even possible that Bush was out of the loop re: the O.S.P. etc.'s demands for selective intel, and thinks that what he's seeing is all there is. 2) There were other, less sellable reasons that Bush, CHeney, Wolfowitz et al wanted to go into Iraq ( such as the reverse domino, payback for GW1/assassination of daddy plan, etc.) which Bush believed to be legitimate, if not the kind that the country would support. So they go with the fear factor, heightened since 9-11, believing them to be highly likely, but in the end less important than getting it done. 3) They believed that they could ultimately spin it any way they wanted. They believed that, post 9-11, the American people were willing to buy anything packaged as protection, and the fact that the majority has believed that Saddam was behind 9-11, that we had found WMDs, that the world supprted the invasion, and that significant portions of the country have believed that WMDs were used against us in the war, etc. sort of backs up this position. Additionally, once we made this an us against the world kind of thing, history suggest that most Americans would rather ignore the truth than admit that we were wrong and everyone else was right. This rasies the shadow of the national insecurity complex that we had following VietNam, and that we didn't get out from under until Reagan taught us to agains believe that we were better than everyone else. If the alternative is going back to pre-Reagan, many American would rather swallow a pack of lies than swallow their pride before the likes of the French. That we were willing to believe some the completely unsubstantiated things that we have does go far to prove how much we want to believe we're right, and how far we'll go to do so. There are other, even more skeptical possibilites, but I believe that it is one of, or all of thse three. I suspect that Bush thought it extremely probable that Saddam had WMDs, and was, in his opinion, merely overstating the case of what we KNEW, believing the conclusion the fudged facts would lead us to to be true. I also believe that they thought it likely that they'd be able to dodge the bullet even in the unlikely event that no WMDs were found, and I also beleive that there was a large power within the administration which was making very selective use of intelligence because the decision to go to war was made, and the facts fit in afterwards, rather than the reverse. Whether Bush was a part of this process or a victim of it, I can't say. E) Imminent threat: as said by Basso: later ammended by giddy to Two points. 1) Having had bio/chem weapons and having them now is not the same thing. That's sort of the point if this whole thing. <b>Of course, but you have to know that ahead of time when it is time to make a decision. Those in responsibility don't have the luxury to wait and look back with a critical eye.</b> 2) Nukes were claimed several times, by several people. As concrete examples, the Niger uranuim was not the only connection...the tubes, etc. G) The 'mistakes' defense...as evident in this is incredible spin... Several points: 1) You are merely citing a few of the countless statements on Iraq's nukes. <b>Those are the ones provided by SamFisher. I didn't pick them. I only picked them apart.</b> 2) In dealing with tense, you are overlooking the fact that Cheney himself made that stipulation...HE made the specific reference to tense difference...He was saying " we believe S.H. is doing X,and in fact has done X. That pre-cursor, " and in fact" shows that he is making a conscious effort to distinguish. If he was continuing to say the same things...ie 'present tense', then why would he make a pre-amble to another example by saying " and in fact"? I wouldn't say ' I believe that Bush is trying to deceive us...is making an effort to mislead us...and in fact is trying to deceive us." If I am continuing on the same note, there is no cause to say " and, in fact"...in fact, it would be redundant. <b>"And in fact" can just be a figure of speech that should/could be taken without meaning. That's okay, I can already here the uproar. The "fact" is that he is expressing what t(he)y believed to be going on.</b> However, it would make perfect sense to say " I believe that Bush is trying to deceive us...is making an effort to mislead us... and in fact has already deceived us." But, moreover, to accept that these were all mistakes...the uranium...the reconstituted...the tubes, etc. you have to accept the following things; * That each was made in the midst of addresses to the nation, with the speaker fully aware of the impact of what he/she was saying. * That none of these 'mistakes'...not one...was ever retracted or corrected until months later, and then only when the statments were shown to be untrue by outside parties. COnsider the conclusions made about Dean's flag stements, and the fact that he didn't correct them for two days, then consider that these statements were about an impending invasion of another country, dealing with issues like the threat of nuclear explosions in the U.S, were made before national audiences, and were never corrected until months had passed, the invasion had been supported, and the statemtns were proven false. Are you honestly suggesting that not one of the dozens of aides, etc. who review each nationally televised statement by head officials caught these mistakes? That Cheney, Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc. never heard or read , for example, his 'reconstituted nuclear weapons' repeated in print or on the air any of the hundreds of times it was? Or that none of them ever considered the impact that a false statement which asserts that Saddam actually has nukes might have on the American people!?!?!? If, in fact, they didn't mean to give that impression...a false one...you don't think that even one of the many people involved might have stumbled across even one of the many 'mis-statements' being continuously repeated in print and on the air, and siad " Uh...guys...this isn't right."?!?!!? Seriously, this is the kind of willingness to swallow anything rather than the truth to which I was earlier referring. * And, finally, you have to consider the fact that all of these 'mistakes' had the desired effect: to give the impression that Saddam posed a significant threat to the US via WMDs/terrorists, and therefore to win support for the invasion. You have to consider how many high level officials were making nationally broadcast, never corrected 'mis-statements', all with the same, desired effect, and that not once did the reverse happen...not once did a high level official 'accidentally' let slip that Saddam had no WMD's, and let it remain uncorrected. <b>That Saddam has no WMDs has not been proven.</b> * Also, you have to overlook the incredibly concerted and designed effort that went into each speech/appearance before the press on Iraq, and it's purpose. Consider the admitted days of group effort that went into the uranium SOTUA inclusion; a lot of time and effort went into finding a way to include reference to intel already discredited in such a way as to be legally true. They came up with Bush stating that " the British have learned.." Now consider why they wanted to include it if they knew it to be discredited. There is only one answer: to frighten us with what they knew to be untrue. There is no other reasonable reason for such a concerted effort to find a way to include it. It is clear they gave false impressions. It is clear that they made statements that the intel said things it didn't say ( NIE report on Saddam/terrorists, for example). It is clear that they cited things they knew to be untrue ( tubes, aluminum, etc.) to achieve the desired effect of scaring the people ( of American and the world) into supporting the invasion. It is clear that they made several statements which were false ( 9-11 connections, nukes, etc.) which they didn't retract until months had gone by, and the argument for the war had been won. It is clear that the priority in their statements was not to present the facts and let us decide whether or not to go to war, but to give us the impression they wanted so as to garner support for the decisions they had already made. And it is clear that they never corrected or retracted any statement which gave a false impression about the war until either they had no choice, or it was a moot point. [/B][/QUOTE]
i remain puzzeled that there's so much confusion over this issue. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and rice said over and over, pre and post Iraq, on "talking heads" shows and in public speeches that the rationale for the war was Iraq's pursuit of WMD, its ties to terrorists organizations, its flaunting of security council resolutions, and the need to reevaluate the existing info and evidence in the wake of 9/11. all the "bush lied" talk is just revisionist history. bush relied on intel from the clinton years, new info, and what was known from UNSCOM and IFOR, all of it reinterpreted through the prism of 9/11. you can accept or deny that 9/11 made such a reevaluation necessary. i believe it did, and nothing that's happened since has changed my mind. no WMD? rather than scream "BUSH LIED" incessantly, thereby taking a strategic decision made in the interest of our nation's security and perverting it for partisian political gain, i ask "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THEM?" we know they were there, where have they gone? that's a much more interesting question than "what did bush say and when did he say it" and one that should keep us all up nights until it's answered. as to whether the was was fought to save Iraqis from a murderous tyrant, no, of course it wasn't. but you can't deny that it's an important outcome. Wes Clark says in the current issue of the New Yorker that the war against Serbia was waged to stop an imminent threat of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and the Iraq war was fought under false pretenses, thereby delegitimizing it. Given that some 30,000 civilians are said to have died in Kosovo, vs the 300,000 in mass graves in Iraq, i suppose this is the sort of clever intellectual exercise that appeals to those of you for whom symantics are more important than results.
Rather than recount the many points that giddy did not/can not address, I'll simply leave those as said and adress the few that he did...sort of...answer. 1) If your version of things, as santitized and selective as it is, is accurate, than you have proven my point. At no point during the build up to the war did Bush present the intelligence as being "certainly conflicting", but repeatedly talked about what " we now know", " have learned", etc. In other words, your own, if he knew that the intel was conflicting and presented it as certain, he knowingly misled us. And all the other examples that you choose to overlook. 2) Has nothing to do with the fact that, as we oursleves are aware of, the defferences between the numbers recorded over a decade ago and those accounted for now are easily explained by common occurence. I don't see what politics or who has used them against his people has anything to do with this...sheer spin, no substance. 3) Which has what to do with the discussion? I liked his tie...next point? 4) Uh....how, exactly, do you split this particular hair? If removing something also removes the need for war, then that something is the cause of the need for war. And you are correct in that it was what threatened us which was adovcated as the cause for war. I really don't get how you think the series of words you have strung together refutes the simple fact: Bush said no WMDS, no war...ipso facto WMDs = war. And we did not go to war to avert being saddened, but to avert being threatened. Just like once we had decided to invade Afghanistan because of their protection of Osama/Al Queda, we saw all kinds of things about veils on women, religious poltics, etc. However, had it turned out that Osama was not and had not been using Afghanistan as his base, would you have said Osama was not the cause of the invasion, being saddened about the veils was? 5. Whatever you suggested the other day aside, this in no way addresses how the argument for war as constructed. Bush never put it before us that we had to correct the wrongs of the past, as laughable as that would have been for an argument for invading another nation contrary to the will of the world: " Hey, you're all wrong and we're right! We know this because of one of the other times when we were wrong and you were right! When will you lkearn from our mistakes!?!?" 6. Oy, ghivah! I am beginning to suspect that you are intentionally missing the pint..A) When did I mention anything being reflective of the outcome...it's that outcome which is being revealed as not that which we advertised. Titles have nothing to do with causes for wars...and if you want to debate this point merely for argument's sake, Iraq is not now currently free. Webster's Dictionary: free-dom: 1. The state of being free of constraints. ( Not accurate for Iraq) 2. Political independance. ( Not accurate for Iraq) 3. Free will. ( Not accurate for Iraq) 4. Unlimited facility of movement. ( Not accurate for Iraq) But aside from the arror of the application, which I only did to show how silly it is to take military titles as somehow designating the war's cause to such an extent that it supercedes all the statements of the administration to that effect, this again misses the point. 7. How? Their only source of intel was through the administration. They are currently conducting...for the first time...their own investigation. And we all know how forthcoming the administration has been to independant investigations...The others believed what they were told, and had no other source for intel. The NIE report was their first access to what the intel was actually saying, and that's when things began to blow up... 8. Absolutely intel is often conflicting...but in this case A) We were not told that. In fact we were told the opposite. When those of us who were against the war pre-war ON THE BASIS THAT THE BASIS FOR THE THREAT, and hence the war, INTEL WAS UNRELIABLE BY NATURE, we weere told we were wrong, unpatriotic, believed Saddam more than the US, and that we wouldn't do this unless we were absolutely sure. B) The administration made it clear that it only wanted intel which supported it's position, and ingnored, often actively sought to ignore, intel which contradicted it's position. To then turn around and say " well, that's intel for you." is ridiculous. Bush et al didn't present the argument for the war as based on a likelyhood, as having been a conclusion arrived at after weighing conflicting reports, it presented it as a certainty based on recently learned facts. THAT is the reality. Please. So you are saying that your knowledge of the nuclear claims are limited to those provided by Sam Fisher? Might that in and of itself not give you pause regarding your ability to make an informed decision about how much of the war was sold on WMD's, as you seemingly missed months containing hundreds of statements. Just like you never addressed why no corrections were ever made, etc. Figures of speech said by politicians to the nation they represent about serious issues like war have a little more weight than you are admitting here. Does " Peace in our time." ring a bell? When a nation makes decisions on what you say, and what you say was wrong, you are supposed to be held accountable. And when you repeatedly say the wrong things, and never correct them, you are accountable for giving a false impression...ie lying. And it never will. You cannot absolutely prove a negative in a case like this. If we find audio tapes of Saddam professing his hatred of WMD, love of all things American, etc., that atill wouldn't 'prove' that he had no WMDs. Fortunately, most objective observors would place the burden of proof on those who convinced us to go to war based on the imminent threat of WMDs to the US, and that has not been proven.
Fair enough. I am particularly looking forward to your addressing why all the mistakes were made in concert with their desired effect, and why none of them were retracted.
...and there you go again, repeating the "imminent threat" canard. did you watch the SOTU, or at least read the excerpts earlier in this thread? i understand it doesn't fit your pre-conceived point that "Bush Lied" but i'd have thought someone with such an obvious academic background would at least refer to the original text to make sure he got his facts straight.
Uh. Wrong. The UN stiplutaions whch some in ignorance love to quote state; A) It is up to the UNSC to determine whether or not there has been a violation of the treaty. B) It is up to the UNSC to determine the degree of that violation. C) It is up to the UNSC to determine what, if any, are the consequences of that violation, and oversee the enaction of same. Saddam was saying he had disarmed, and the UNSC was investigating that claim. We were not satisfied, and because of same, we broke the treaty. If you claim that this was a continuation of GW1, then we stand gulity of war crimes. If you do not, Saddam had no burden to prove anything to us. You can;t have it both ways. And more and more it appears that Saddam was essentially telling us the truth whether or not we wanted to hear it. But, aside from that, you are intentionally avoiding the burden we are discussing, which in this case is for those who began the war to prove that it was necessary. Not for Saddam to prove to the US above and beyond the Un that he was complying to a decade old treaty or else we had no choice but invade...
Lol! As we are citing who did and did not read what, maybe try reading the paragraph in which I addressed this weird spin that Bush was saying there was no imminent threat, let alon the several other occassions when administration officials called the threat so....
