Clinton, Gore, and Kerry Lied, People Died!
How do you think they sleep at night, those big fat liars?
Posted by Rosemary on
11.25.2005
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R.I.P. Steven Malcolm Anderson
Minion
of the Week
I read today " "Handelsblatt": tajne loty CIA odbywają się nadal" its means: "Handelsblatt": top secret CIA planes still fly" German newspaper say so in Poland CIA have got top secret jail, and keep terrorists there!!! I want to ask: someone stupid asshole will able to believe in this. This person will able to kill my people. Who will be guilty there?
I know nothing about NBC weapon in Iraq. But Iraq have got quite good rocket industry, and not bed electronic industry. The question is: Hussain had got rocket and had not got Warheads for them?
Rose, sharpen yur pencil -- here's how your opponents are handling this. For example, Adam Dauou re-frames it pretty well:
"Democrats got the same intelligence and reached the same conclusion, so blaming Bush for misleading America is purely political."
The argument is also presented in 'gotcha' form by people like Sean Hannity, who use a lengthy blind quote about the threat posed by Saddam that turns out to be from Bill Clinton, John Kerry or some other Democrat. The conclusion is that if Bush was lying, they must have been lying too.
There is a false assumption underlying this argument, namely that Dems received the same intel as Bush (they didn't), but setting that aside, here are two reasons why this is a straw man:
a) The issue is not whether people believed Saddam had WMD (many did), or whether there was any evidence that he had WMD (there was), it's the fact that Bush and his administration made an absolute, unconditional case with the evidence at hand, brooking no dissent and dismissing doubters inside and outside the government as cowardly or treasonous. That's what "manipulating the intelligence" and "misleading the public" refers to, the knowing exaggeration of the case for war (whether by cherry-picking intel or using defunct intel or by speaking about ambiguous intel in alarming absolutes).
As I wrote in this post: "There we were, more than a decade after the first gulf war, two years after 9/11, and Saddam hadn’t attacked us, he hadn’t threatened to attack us. And then suddenly, he was the biggest threat to America. A threat that required a massive invasion. A bigger threat than Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, Bin Laden. A HUGE, IMMEDIATE threat. It simply defied belief."
b) In addition to the fear-mongering described above, the contention that Bush 'misled' the public is not simply about Saddam's WMD, but about the way the administration stormed ahead with their plans and invaded Iraq in the way they did, at the time they did, with the Pollyannaish visions they fed the world, all the while demonizing dissent and smearing their critics.
In both (a) and (b), the crux of the issue is proportionality. Whether or not Bill Clinton or France or the U.N. believed Saddam was a threat, the administration's apocalyptic words and drastic actions (preemptively invading a sovereign nation) were decidedly out of proportion to the level and immediacy of the threat.
THAT is the issue.
And on that, Saddam had the burden of proof. He was warned what the consequenses would be. I only wish there was action pre-emptively prior to 9/11.
You want to believe that Clinton didn't get the same intel - go ahead but you're fooling yourself. As for the rest of them, whether they did or didn't who knows for certain. I certainly won't trust them to tell the truth about it now. Especially since, as J. Rockefeller pointed out, few of them (only 6 senators) bothered to read what was presented before voting for authorization of force.
How dare you expect Ungood and Ara to actually adress the ISSUES!! They make their OWN ISSUES that YOU must answer. Never dare to question their heros, they're perfect! Bush Lied, People Died! It'a sll Bush's fault! (Oh, and your's and a majority of Americans for voting for him!)
I think that pretty much covers it...
I'll be happy to address the issues when I find out what they are.
Good thing I'm not a Democrat. But I'd take note that the recent tendency of the hawks to avoid defending Iraq policy, and an increasing concentration of attacking the record of the Democrats instead. Which doesn't bother me in the least, BTW. It's just a sign that Bush and the policies of his adminstration have become undefendable, even to his most loyal supporters.
Who was it that took us into war with Iraq again? Was it Clinton? No.
The thing is, I agree that Dems who voted for the war have to share the blame for it. Absolutely. But as I keep saying, what about people like Russ Feingold, who knew the case for war was bogus and voted accordingly? Shouldn't people like him be celebrated?
As for quotes, here are a couple of my favorites:
"Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capacity with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
-Secretary of State Colin Powell, February 24, 2001
"We are able to keep [Saddam's] arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
-NSC advisor Condi Rice, July 29, 2001
How's that for administration spokesmen?
You won't.
And then for fun, name the member of the administration or republican leadership who, after that presentation, said it would take over $200 billion and 200,000 troops or more to completely secure the country, that three years later there would be be a steady escalation of violence with a daily loss of 3 US military and 30 civilians, a decrease in relative security even in the capital, no indication that our troops were coming home in the foreseeable future, and in all that time the Iraq security forces will be woefully inadequate to take over the job from us -- and still has a job with this government.
George Bush's dad doesn't count.
Name the sonofabitch who told us that (insert reason here) is worth it even though that by the time this is all over, a minimum 3000 US troops will be dead and another 20,000 will be blind or crippled, which is where we'll be by this time next year unless things change.
You come up with that, I'll sit up an listen and wonder why I hadn't heard that before, why I wasn't paying attention.
If you can't come up with that, some actual war advocacy by the dems instead of mere acknowledgment that Saddam was evil, or some honest projections of the costs expected for a realistic non-hyped benefit by the GOP, then ya got sumptin!
Otherwise all you are accomplishing is preaching to the choir and avoiding the problems that have divided us and make us look weak, all of us. When this country is united, E Pluribus Unum, nothing can stop us and our moral authority is unquestionable. Don't sputter and whine that a lot of people thought that Iraq still had WMD's and so even the dems were wrong, and think that this will make this country better, elevate the argument or win people to your side of thinking.
People didn't die because Democrats were saying that Iraq was a threat to the stability of the area or a threat to our country. They died because our current President committed this country to a ground war in Iraq. Something I find lacking in the Democratic quotes.
As to whether he lied, the jury may be out. Several scenarios are possible.
A) Bush lied intentionally to promote a war that was unneccessary on the grounds provided, but dovetailed nicely with the neocon agenda of World domination by the U.S., and control or influence in the vital Middle East, including security for Israel and access to the oil in the region.
B) Bush was misled by others in his administration (Cheney?) as to the gravity and reality of the (non)threat that Saddam posed directly to these United States.
C) The entire administration was hoodwinked by a completely incompetent intelligence community that provided them with nothing but intel that supported a direct invasion as the only way of accomplishing the goals of the U.S. insofar as removing Saddam's WMD's were concerned.
So...
Is the President/Administration lying to us, or just more stupid than previous ones, which includes his Daddy (as well as the majority of the World community)?
Ron
Who has both fiscal and jurisdictional oversight of the US intelligence community?
Hint: it's not POTUS.
So which is it: corrupt, or simply monumentally incompetent? Either way, not exactly a gold star for the history books.
;-)
I'm not sure whether most of the Democratic leadership is corrupt, or simply monumentally incompetent. Notable exceptions: Senators Clinton and Lieberman. %lt;toungue-in-cheek%gt;I suspect Schumer and Reid are corrupt, but Durbin is simply monumentally incompetent.%lt;/toungue-in-cheek%gt;
Yours,
Wince
Exactly.
Yours,
Wince