if bush told congress and america that his reasons for going to iraq were based on wmd's and 9/11 connections, "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy", then that's lying. or what do you call telling people one thing while consciously knowing that what you're saying isn't true? what does merriam-webster's call that?
how are 'misleading' and 'lying' different? especially in the context of pretext for war?
-your premise that Bush's only reason to going to Iraq was WMD & 9-11 connection is wrong. no direct 9-11 connection was made. the connection was secondary...Iraq supported terrorism & terrorists and financed them. WMD was an secondary reason that amplified the urgency of the primary reason. Everybody believed in WMD, Clinton believed in WMD. Our government's official policy towards Iraq since Clinton or earlier had been regime change.
from this article
"...Bush and Blair (and especially Bush) recognized early on that a military invasion of Iraq, followed by a physical presence in-country for an indefinite period of time, was key to changing the poisonous social/political environment in the Middle East that enabled violent Islamist ideology to flourish. The talk about Saddam and WMD was not a lie — Bush and Blair certainly believed it, as did pretty much every intelligence service in the Western world — but there was far more to Operation Iraqi Freedom than WMD. The now-famous memo is simply another confirmation of Bush and Blair’s proper concern with larger strategic realities, and the relatively subordinate role that Iraqi WMD played in their calculations. Nothing new there, as Blair correctly said..."
you, and a majority of dumb americans are guilty of 'misfollowing', choosing to ignore the larger picture, and the sincerity of those who took us to war. if Bush lied and misled, so did Clinton.
btw you can mislead without lying. what you're trying to equate with misleading is 'being dishonest'. what's dishonest is continuing to peddle the notion that the war was all about WMD.
whoa.
alright, i really don't have time to properly respond to everything you just said that frustrates me, but i guess i'll just stay up late.
a couple of things, a lot of things. one at a time..
you're absolutely right that iraq wasn't about wmd or 9-11, that's exactly the point of criticism. bush SAID that it was about wmd's and connections to 9-11, but it wasn't. he LIED in order to convince the public to go to war. he said over and over again that the reasons for going were that saddam had wmd's and was a threat to this country because of that. and if you really want to try and pretend that wmd's were PUBLICLY only SECONDARY reasons for going to war according to what bush was telling america, then how about this - from whitehouse.gov, bush's official web presence, a transcript of bush's address to the nation on march 17, 2003, officially setting the ultimatum to saddam to leave iraq within 48 hours or the us would attack:
"THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.
The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.
The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.
The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.
The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.
Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq. America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations. One reason the U.N. was founded after the second world war was to confront aggressive dictators, actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.
In the case of Iraq, the Security Council did act, in the early 1990s. Under Resolutions 678 and 687 -- both still in effect -- the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction..."
hmmm. sounds pretty clear to me that bush is saying that wmd's are the PRIMARY reason for going in to iraq. indeed, he admits that the only internationally LEGAL way that we could go to war in iraq is if they were harboring wmd's. war crimes anyone?
in any case, if you really want to make strong objective points of discussion, you probably shouldn't use hardcore, unabashadly ultra right wing website editorials as your source. frontpage magazine? come on.
as for clinton lying and misleading... all i can say is that clinton did't send us to war. clinton isn't responsible for the deaths of thousands of heroic american soldiers and tens and of thousands of innocent iraqi civilians. i'd say there's no reasonably comparison there.
as for "dumb americans"... how the hell can you call it DUMB to BELIEVE WHAT YOUR PRESIDENT TELLS YOU?
whatever you want to call what bush did, whether misleading or lying (if there is a difference) you can't deny that bush's "misleading" statements were no more or less misleading than clinton's "misleading" statments during the monica lewinsky debacle. i'd say they both lied. period. the only difference is that bush's lies lead to the deaths of thousands.
and finally, your ending statement - "what's dishonest is continuing to peddle the notion that the war was all about WMD." ...
EXACTLY.
heterarchy, i think you're in need of some critical thinking.
why are you fixated on the WMD? if all evidence (the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, Clinton, all foreign intelligence, our own intelligence) pointed to their being WMD, and it turned out there wasn't, why are you so upset?
the post-war analysis reveals two things:
1. better intelligence was needed in order to confirm what the entire world believed to be true
2. thank goodness not much WMD was there, it could have been a lot messier and we'd have lost more troops.
3. if you're a dictator, and don't have WMD, better damn comply with the UN's weapons inspectors who ask you to prove that you destroyed your WMD. Saddam didn't. we had no choice other than war as Bush showed in the speech you pasted.
if it was all about the WMD as you claim, why don't we attack North Korea, Russia, China, Israel, or Iran? is the larger strategic interest just way over your head?
quote me from the Bush speech you just pasted where exactly he is lying. one can't be judged as 'misleading' in retrospect if one was sincere in the original context, as Bush was, as Clinton was...Bush just had more momentum with 9-11.
I hope you were a Nader voter...Kerry said he would have made the same decision to go to war...would Kerry have been a LIAR for believing what the world did at the time?
who's primarily responsible for the WMD debacle? Saddam. he could have complied with Blix and the UN, showing how he had destroyed all his chemical weapons...but he didn't. so, it was left to us and the world to decide. if you abide by the UN's authority on such matters, you would have to conclude, and STILL believe, that Saddam had thousands of chemical weapons (WMD), as Saddam hadn't accounted for destroying them. YES, that's right, if you believe in the supremacy of the UN over the US, then you believe that Iraq still has the WMD, if you don't, then you're admitting that either the UN was wrong, or that the WMD just vanished into thin air, none of which is Bush's fault.
another note, it ought not matter where quotes are taken from, as everyone is biased. you ought to have the fortitude to analyze anything for what it is, not where it comes from. it's a nice dodge though.
nico, the "nice dodge" is in somehow twisting my words in to "if it was all about the WMD as you claim"...
you're either purposefully (poorly) manipulating what i'm talking about in order to dodge the real issue, or you aren't paying any attention at all. i'm not the one who said the motivations for invading iraq are all about wmd's, that was bush. i'm telling you that that was what he said. though i'm flattered that you're somehow mixing me up with the president of the united states...
as for the part of bush's speech that was a lie, that's the whole thing i quoted. bush said time and time again that we were justified in going to war in iraq because they had wmd's. mounting evidence suggests that bush knew there weren't weapons of mass destruction in iraq, hence if he tells america and congress that we are justified in going to war in iraq because there is an imminent threat of attack through wmd's, when he knows that that isn't the case, then that is lying.
furthermore, all the evidence DID NOT point to saddam having wmd's. i don't know how you think that blix was convinced that there wmd's in iraq. from hans' mouth:
"Assessing the case for the Iraq war
HANS BLIX: Well, they certainly advanced weapons of mass destruction as the decisive reason for going to war, and I think the evidence was rather weak at the time. We had heard in the autumn of 2002 that the alleged aluminum tubes, for instance, which were thought, alleged to be for making the centrifuges, were probably more likely to be for making a rocket. And in January 2003, we had performed quite a lot of inspections to sites which were given by intelligence and they had not shown any weapons of mass destruction, so we began to be doubtful."
the fact of the matter is that no one but the bush's administration was CONVINCED that saddam had wmd's or was a genuine threat to the united states or the world. that isn't to say that anyone was certain that there WEREN'T wmd's either. the point is that if you're going to put forth iraq's possession of wmd's as the primary reason for going to war, for putting hundreds of thousands of american's lives on the line, for invading another sovereign country, and for spending hundreds of billions of american tax payer's dollars - then you had better be ABSOLUTELY sure that those wmd's are there. but the fact of the matter is that (as you have argued, and as i've always believed, though you somehow are fabricating accusations to the contrary) wmd's were never the reason we went to war in iraq. that's why i say that bush lied. you've already admitted that wmd's weren't the reason that we went to war, so how can you ask me what part of bush's speech i quoted above is a lie?!
and twisting the argument around to make it sound as though i'm "upset" that there were no wmd's is just beyond the scope of and sort of common sense. are you even reading what you're writing? or are you just not listening to anything i've written? the only success in any of your arguments has been to confuse and convolute the real issues. obviously it's a wonderful thing that there weren't any wmd's, but it would be even more wonderful if there hadn't been a war at all.
now the fact that saddam is primarily responsible for all of this is absolutely correct. however, i hold the president of the united states to a higher standard than a guy who is known to be an obvious mad man and tyrant.
and how in the world can you say that if i abide with the un's authority i would somehow suuport bush, who completely ignored and insulted the un?! that doesn't make any sense at all.
at the end of the day, bush knew that the reasons he wanted to go in to war wouldn't be enough to convince america to support that decision, so he scared america in to thinking that iraq had wmd's when he knew they didn't. another quote:
"JIM LEHRER: ...does it matter that there was a false premise, a false premise for taking military action in the long run?
HANS BLIX: Yes, I think so. The argument that was advanced for justification for the intervention was the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell would say, for instance, that we are talking about real weapons, about real anthrax, about real VX. And they were not. They were talking about something that didn't exist. And I think that it would have been very hard for the U.S. and the U.K. to persuade both Congress and U.K. Parliament to authorize armed action if they had not contended that there actually were real weapons. So they had a need to do that."
we know he had thousands of chemical weapons, your lot sold them to him in the 70's and 80's.
the bits where bush lied.
the bit where hes said
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised"
this came only days after the CIA requested that all refernces to iraq seeking nuclear componets from nigeria (from the 2003 sate of the union) be removed from the speach as the information was higly suspect. so you can hardly claim that he made that statement in good faith in his inteligence.
when questioned about ignoring the recomendations of the CIA, scott meclean said that they had 'forgot'.
what the f...
either they rememmberd and lied or they are so incompetant that they misplaced a vital piece of national security advice.
...so Iraq DIDN'T have WMD....but yes he DID have WMD because we sold it to him...makes sense! (check the percentages of who sold what to Iraq and you'll see we hardly made up the majority...also remember the larger context at the time of the conflict with Iran...so very conveniently and naively forgotten)
evidence that Iraq had WMD was openly available from the UN. because it was wrong is not Bush's fault. if you're looking for a scapegoat, why not the UN, or Saddam?
if a scientist has a theory or hypothesis on something based on all available data at the time, yet in a later experiment new data, or a new method of gathering data, reveals his first hypothesis incorrect, that doesn't make him a liar, it makes him incorrect.
now you're focusing one one or two quotes or references within the larger context of "Iraq has WMD". of course your intelligence isn't going to be 100% bulletproof. remember all the bogus intelligence 'gained' from defectors? your standard is unreasonably high.
the nigeria nuclear evidence was hardly 'vital', as we already knew Saddam had WMD because the UN's reports said so CLEARLY. it was just an extra piece of evidence (probably shouldn't have been used), used for the purposes of making a larger case to convince a broader range of people.
why bush and not the un or saddam? because bush is the one who unilaterally waged the war.
there is no scapegoat here, only a dire need for bush to take responsibility.
a scientist's incorrect hypothesis rarely kills tens of thousands of people, costs over 100 billion dollars, or completely trashes a nation's international reputation. give the situation a little more respect.
my standard for going to war is anything but "unreasonable". the leader of the free world and duly elected democratic representative of the united states has a responsibility to be totally and deadly serious honest about motivations for putting people's lives on the line in war. his standards should be EVEN HIGHER than mine.
if you're asking me to provide a metaphorical example that carries the weigh of going to war, no, i don't have one, because there isn't one...
the point of the scientist example was to show that simply being incorrect is nothing like being a malicious liar. you attack the metaphor on other fronts like reverance and weight. it's irrelevant. no metaphor is all-encompassing.
what's Bush to take responsibility for? what should he say? he's already said our intelligence was incorrect and needs to be better. but he, along with John Kerry, have said they would have made the same decision to go to war with what they knew at the time. (the right decision) what are you looking for?
going to war was the right decision, and most democrats concur. just because the WMD didn't turn out the way we expected doesn't mean we shouldn't have gone. that's like saying if we didn't find Saddam it wasn't worth going to war. regime change is regime change.
so tell me what were Bush's motivations? regime change? oil? boredom? halliburton? give me a real good conspiracy.
nico: i'm not in to conspiracy theories, just figuring out what the truth is. when you believe the truth is anything other that what the mainstream tells you (whether you're on the left or right, or even if you consider yourself centrist), then you're often labeled as a conspiracy nut.
anyway, i believe bush's motivations were what you've mentioned above, a larger long-term strategic goal. however, i disagree with those goals, especially in the specific execution of their means in the case of the iraq war. but the more important point that i keep making is that bush did not present the case to go to war to america in terms of his real motivations. instead, he preyed on our fears in the wake of 9-11, evoking the terror of saddam's wmd's as the reason that we should go to war. he knew (as blix says above and as many others have said time and again) that it would have been much more difficult to convince america and congress to go to war in iraq, especially while we were still fighting in afghanistan and had yet to find bin laden, if he simply told the country that invading iraq was a good tactical move at that time, designed to strenghten our foothold in the middle east. america would not have agreed to go to war for merely those reasons. hence the claims of "misleading" as you call it, and hence the enormous importance of that "misleading". if bush had told the TRUTH about why he wanted to invade iraq, we very likely would not be there right now.
all of this comes down, for me personally at least, to a feeling of having been deceived, by my own president, in to war. as an american, and an adamant believer in the ideals of freedom and democracy, that's very difficult for me to deal with.
as for going to war being the right decision, i think you know that i would disagree with that. but that's an opinion discussion and neither of us would convince the other. i would have supported going to war in iraq if more time had been given (in order to finish the war in afghanistan and find bin laden first), if bush had been perfectly honest and clear with the public and the world about his reasons, if the american people then gave their consent based on all the real facts and motivations, and if the war was waged under the full auspices and support of the un, instead of unilaterally. and i still hold a naive hope that if we hadn't acted unilatterally, there may not have been any need for war at all. we'll never know now.
as for most democrats believing going to war was the right decision, that was certainly true at the time they voted to do so based on the misleading reasons and evidence that bush presented them soon after the tragedy of 9-11, but it isn't true now. i couldn't find any specific "democrat" figures, but the most recent poll i saw, on cnn, said this:
"As Bush prepares to address the nation Tuesday to defend his Iraq policy, just 40 percent of those responding to the poll said they approved of his handling of the war; 58 percent said they disapproved." CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll - June 28, 2005
granted that's "handling" not whether it was right to go in or not. but it's still a pretty scathing and illuminating figure.
bush's responsibility is to tell america the truth. to admit that he took us to war on false pretenses, and that he did not prepare anything even closely resembling a competent plan to keep the peace after the war, as is grossly more evident every single day.
basically, he needs to take responsibility for being the COMMANDER IN CHIEF of the united states. the leader. the desk where the buck stops. stop blaming everyone else around him, act like a real leader, step up to the plate, and just admit, "I SCREWED UP. I'M SORRY."
that's taking responsibility.
i understand your elaboration of your disagreements but i do not understand the disagreements themselves.
i have followed US foreign policy since Bush I and studied some 20th century US foreign policy, and i in no way was under the impression we were simply going to war due to fear of Saddam's WMD or some kind of connection Saddam had to 9-11. these were bolstering reasons but too simplistic and naive to be the main argument. (i.e. why not attack North Korea, Iran, or Saudi Arabia?)
yes, many like you, have misunderstood the whole context, and if a leader seeks to retain power in a 'representative republic', he needs to convince a majority of people he's right, or at least better than the other guy. Bush won reelection after the discovery of no WMDs, so the people have spoken.
what did Bush screw up exactly? it was the UN and all manner of international intellligence that told us Saddam had WMD, along with our own intelligence. seems like they screwed up. or, maybe everyone was acting in good will and just got it wrong??? (i hardly believe that given the UN oil-for-food scandal)
let's assume pure worldwide political corruption. were all the facts lies or were there some real facts in there? or, were the facts facts and leaders doing what leaders do by valuing certain sets of facts over others?
the firing of George Tenet might have been a good idea. you're problem is you think you can judge past events given current knowledge. in your world no matter which way Bush acted he'd have screwed up because there wasn't world peace immediately.
as for democrats (and the world) supporting the war and the pre-war intelligence, just go back and see how the democrats insisted on another war resolution basically saying the same thing as a previous one, just so they could vote for it (to look good politically). they looked at the same intelligence Bush looked at and came to the same conclusion. Bush didn't draw up a sketch and fool them.
look at the 9 UN resolutions regarding Iraq. one of the earliest of which said that if Saddam violated the cease-fire terms of the first Gulf War, we could take military action against him. he'd violated those terms every year since the gulf war. we could have gone to war with or without WMD.
but Clinton warned us of Saddam's WMD. Clinton's policy was regime change. you act as if Bush came along and all of a sudden we were jumping into Iraq. remember the first world trade center attackers (1998) were connected to Iraq. this is pre-Bush. 9-11 gave us the extra will we needed to take Clinton's regime change policy and actually enact it, but maybe not enough will, given how short people's memories are.
Many Republican strategists are anticipating that his choice will be Judge Edith Clement of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though they stressed that remained uncertain.
"I'm comfortable where we are in the process," the president said shortly after noon, during an appearance with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "The best way to put it is I'll let you know when I'm ready to tell you who it is."
shoot e, i was going to post a new thread on this... :) you beat me to the punch.
still checking his creds... have to admit, not knowing anything about him when i first saw that bush had nominated him, the first thing that i thought was, "whoa, he's really really young. he's going to be a supreme court justice for a VERY long time"
Sandra Day O'Connor Resigns ....
if bush told congress and america that his reasons for going to iraq were based on wmd's and 9/11 connections, "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy", then that's lying. or what do you call telling people one thing while consciously knowing that what you're saying isn't true? what does merriam-webster's call that?
how are 'misleading' and 'lying' different? especially in the context of pretext for war?
-your premise that Bush's only reason to going to Iraq was WMD & 9-11 connection is wrong. no direct 9-11 connection was made. the connection was secondary...Iraq supported terrorism & terrorists and financed them. WMD was an secondary reason that amplified the urgency of the primary reason. Everybody believed in WMD, Clinton believed in WMD. Our government's official policy towards Iraq since Clinton or earlier had been regime change.
from this article
"...Bush and Blair (and especially Bush) recognized early on that a military invasion of Iraq, followed by a physical presence in-country for an indefinite period of time, was key to changing the poisonous social/political environment in the Middle East that enabled violent Islamist ideology to flourish. The talk about Saddam and WMD was not a lie — Bush and Blair certainly believed it, as did pretty much every intelligence service in the Western world — but there was far more to Operation Iraqi Freedom than WMD. The now-famous memo is simply another confirmation of Bush and Blair’s proper concern with larger strategic realities, and the relatively subordinate role that Iraqi WMD played in their calculations. Nothing new there, as Blair correctly said..."
you, and a majority of dumb americans are guilty of 'misfollowing', choosing to ignore the larger picture, and the sincerity of those who took us to war. if Bush lied and misled, so did Clinton.
btw you can mislead without lying. what you're trying to equate with misleading is 'being dishonest'. what's dishonest is continuing to peddle the notion that the war was all about WMD.
whoa.
alright, i really don't have time to properly respond to everything you just said that frustrates me, but i guess i'll just stay up late.
a couple of things, a lot of things. one at a time..
you're absolutely right that iraq wasn't about wmd or 9-11, that's exactly the point of criticism. bush SAID that it was about wmd's and connections to 9-11, but it wasn't. he LIED in order to convince the public to go to war. he said over and over again that the reasons for going were that saddam had wmd's and was a threat to this country because of that. and if you really want to try and pretend that wmd's were PUBLICLY only SECONDARY reasons for going to war according to what bush was telling america, then how about this - from whitehouse.gov, bush's official web presence, a transcript of bush's address to the nation on march 17, 2003, officially setting the ultimatum to saddam to leave iraq within 48 hours or the us would attack:
"THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.
The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.
The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.
The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.
The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.
Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq. America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations. One reason the U.N. was founded after the second world war was to confront aggressive dictators, actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.
In the case of Iraq, the Security Council did act, in the early 1990s. Under Resolutions 678 and 687 -- both still in effect -- the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction..."
hmmm. sounds pretty clear to me that bush is saying that wmd's are the PRIMARY reason for going in to iraq. indeed, he admits that the only internationally LEGAL way that we could go to war in iraq is if they were harboring wmd's. war crimes anyone?
in any case, if you really want to make strong objective points of discussion, you probably shouldn't use hardcore, unabashadly ultra right wing website editorials as your source. frontpage magazine? come on.
as for clinton lying and misleading... all i can say is that clinton did't send us to war. clinton isn't responsible for the deaths of thousands of heroic american soldiers and tens and of thousands of innocent iraqi civilians. i'd say there's no reasonably comparison there.
as for "dumb americans"... how the hell can you call it DUMB to BELIEVE WHAT YOUR PRESIDENT TELLS YOU?
whatever you want to call what bush did, whether misleading or lying (if there is a difference) you can't deny that bush's "misleading" statements were no more or less misleading than clinton's "misleading" statments during the monica lewinsky debacle. i'd say they both lied. period. the only difference is that bush's lies lead to the deaths of thousands.
and finally, your ending statement - "what's dishonest is continuing to peddle the notion that the war was all about WMD." ...
EXACTLY.
heterarchy, i think you're in need of some critical thinking.
why are you fixated on the WMD? if all evidence (the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, Clinton, all foreign intelligence, our own intelligence) pointed to their being WMD, and it turned out there wasn't, why are you so upset?
the post-war analysis reveals two things:
1. better intelligence was needed in order to confirm what the entire world believed to be true
2. thank goodness not much WMD was there, it could have been a lot messier and we'd have lost more troops.
3. if you're a dictator, and don't have WMD, better damn comply with the UN's weapons inspectors who ask you to prove that you destroyed your WMD. Saddam didn't. we had no choice other than war as Bush showed in the speech you pasted.
if it was all about the WMD as you claim, why don't we attack North Korea, Russia, China, Israel, or Iran? is the larger strategic interest just way over your head?
quote me from the Bush speech you just pasted where exactly he is lying. one can't be judged as 'misleading' in retrospect if one was sincere in the original context, as Bush was, as Clinton was...Bush just had more momentum with 9-11.
I hope you were a Nader voter...Kerry said he would have made the same decision to go to war...would Kerry have been a LIAR for believing what the world did at the time?
who's primarily responsible for the WMD debacle? Saddam. he could have complied with Blix and the UN, showing how he had destroyed all his chemical weapons...but he didn't. so, it was left to us and the world to decide. if you abide by the UN's authority on such matters, you would have to conclude, and STILL believe, that Saddam had thousands of chemical weapons (WMD), as Saddam hadn't accounted for destroying them. YES, that's right, if you believe in the supremacy of the UN over the US, then you believe that Iraq still has the WMD, if you don't, then you're admitting that either the UN was wrong, or that the WMD just vanished into thin air, none of which is Bush's fault.
another note, it ought not matter where quotes are taken from, as everyone is biased. you ought to have the fortitude to analyze anything for what it is, not where it comes from. it's a nice dodge though.
nico, the "nice dodge" is in somehow twisting my words in to "if it was all about the WMD as you claim"...
you're either purposefully (poorly) manipulating what i'm talking about in order to dodge the real issue, or you aren't paying any attention at all. i'm not the one who said the motivations for invading iraq are all about wmd's, that was bush. i'm telling you that that was what he said. though i'm flattered that you're somehow mixing me up with the president of the united states...
as for the part of bush's speech that was a lie, that's the whole thing i quoted. bush said time and time again that we were justified in going to war in iraq because they had wmd's. mounting evidence suggests that bush knew there weren't weapons of mass destruction in iraq, hence if he tells america and congress that we are justified in going to war in iraq because there is an imminent threat of attack through wmd's, when he knows that that isn't the case, then that is lying.
furthermore, all the evidence DID NOT point to saddam having wmd's. i don't know how you think that blix was convinced that there wmd's in iraq. from hans' mouth:
"Assessing the case for the Iraq war
HANS BLIX: Well, they certainly advanced weapons of mass destruction as the decisive reason for going to war, and I think the evidence was rather weak at the time. We had heard in the autumn of 2002 that the alleged aluminum tubes, for instance, which were thought, alleged to be for making the centrifuges, were probably more likely to be for making a rocket. And in January 2003, we had performed quite a lot of inspections to sites which were given by intelligence and they had not shown any weapons of mass destruction, so we began to be doubtful."
the fact of the matter is that no one but the bush's administration was CONVINCED that saddam had wmd's or was a genuine threat to the united states or the world. that isn't to say that anyone was certain that there WEREN'T wmd's either. the point is that if you're going to put forth iraq's possession of wmd's as the primary reason for going to war, for putting hundreds of thousands of american's lives on the line, for invading another sovereign country, and for spending hundreds of billions of american tax payer's dollars - then you had better be ABSOLUTELY sure that those wmd's are there. but the fact of the matter is that (as you have argued, and as i've always believed, though you somehow are fabricating accusations to the contrary) wmd's were never the reason we went to war in iraq. that's why i say that bush lied. you've already admitted that wmd's weren't the reason that we went to war, so how can you ask me what part of bush's speech i quoted above is a lie?!
and twisting the argument around to make it sound as though i'm "upset" that there were no wmd's is just beyond the scope of and sort of common sense. are you even reading what you're writing? or are you just not listening to anything i've written? the only success in any of your arguments has been to confuse and convolute the real issues. obviously it's a wonderful thing that there weren't any wmd's, but it would be even more wonderful if there hadn't been a war at all.
now the fact that saddam is primarily responsible for all of this is absolutely correct. however, i hold the president of the united states to a higher standard than a guy who is known to be an obvious mad man and tyrant.
and how in the world can you say that if i abide with the un's authority i would somehow suuport bush, who completely ignored and insulted the un?! that doesn't make any sense at all.
at the end of the day, bush knew that the reasons he wanted to go in to war wouldn't be enough to convince america to support that decision, so he scared america in to thinking that iraq had wmd's when he knew they didn't. another quote:
"JIM LEHRER: ...does it matter that there was a false premise, a false premise for taking military action in the long run?
HANS BLIX: Yes, I think so. The argument that was advanced for justification for the intervention was the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell would say, for instance, that we are talking about real weapons, about real anthrax, about real VX. And they were not. They were talking about something that didn't exist. And I think that it would have been very hard for the U.S. and the U.K. to persuade both Congress and U.K. Parliament to authorize armed action if they had not contended that there actually were real weapons. So they had a need to do that."
nicomachean,
we know he had thousands of chemical weapons, your lot sold them to him in the 70's and 80's.
the bits where bush lied.
the bit where hes said
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised"
this came only days after the CIA requested that all refernces to iraq seeking nuclear componets from nigeria (from the 2003 sate of the union) be removed from the speach as the information was higly suspect. so you can hardly claim that he made that statement in good faith in his inteligence.
when questioned about ignoring the recomendations of the CIA, scott meclean said that they had 'forgot'.
what the f...
either they rememmberd and lied or they are so incompetant that they misplaced a vital piece of national security advice.
i favour the lied.
...so Iraq DIDN'T have WMD....but yes he DID have WMD because we sold it to him...makes sense! (check the percentages of who sold what to Iraq and you'll see we hardly made up the majority...also remember the larger context at the time of the conflict with Iran...so very conveniently and naively forgotten)
evidence that Iraq had WMD was openly available from the UN. because it was wrong is not Bush's fault. if you're looking for a scapegoat, why not the UN, or Saddam?
if a scientist has a theory or hypothesis on something based on all available data at the time, yet in a later experiment new data, or a new method of gathering data, reveals his first hypothesis incorrect, that doesn't make him a liar, it makes him incorrect.
now you're focusing one one or two quotes or references within the larger context of "Iraq has WMD". of course your intelligence isn't going to be 100% bulletproof. remember all the bogus intelligence 'gained' from defectors? your standard is unreasonably high.
the nigeria nuclear evidence was hardly 'vital', as we already knew Saddam had WMD because the UN's reports said so CLEARLY. it was just an extra piece of evidence (probably shouldn't have been used), used for the purposes of making a larger case to convince a broader range of people.
why bush and not the un or saddam? because bush is the one who unilaterally waged the war.
there is no scapegoat here, only a dire need for bush to take responsibility.
a scientist's incorrect hypothesis rarely kills tens of thousands of people, costs over 100 billion dollars, or completely trashes a nation's international reputation. give the situation a little more respect.
my standard for going to war is anything but "unreasonable". the leader of the free world and duly elected democratic representative of the united states has a responsibility to be totally and deadly serious honest about motivations for putting people's lives on the line in war. his standards should be EVEN HIGHER than mine.
if you're asking me to provide a metaphorical example that carries the weigh of going to war, no, i don't have one, because there isn't one...
the point of the scientist example was to show that simply being incorrect is nothing like being a malicious liar. you attack the metaphor on other fronts like reverance and weight. it's irrelevant. no metaphor is all-encompassing.
what's Bush to take responsibility for? what should he say? he's already said our intelligence was incorrect and needs to be better. but he, along with John Kerry, have said they would have made the same decision to go to war with what they knew at the time. (the right decision) what are you looking for?
going to war was the right decision, and most democrats concur. just because the WMD didn't turn out the way we expected doesn't mean we shouldn't have gone. that's like saying if we didn't find Saddam it wasn't worth going to war. regime change is regime change.
so tell me what were Bush's motivations? regime change? oil? boredom? halliburton? give me a real good conspiracy.
nico: i'm not in to conspiracy theories, just figuring out what the truth is. when you believe the truth is anything other that what the mainstream tells you (whether you're on the left or right, or even if you consider yourself centrist), then you're often labeled as a conspiracy nut.
anyway, i believe bush's motivations were what you've mentioned above, a larger long-term strategic goal. however, i disagree with those goals, especially in the specific execution of their means in the case of the iraq war. but the more important point that i keep making is that bush did not present the case to go to war to america in terms of his real motivations. instead, he preyed on our fears in the wake of 9-11, evoking the terror of saddam's wmd's as the reason that we should go to war. he knew (as blix says above and as many others have said time and again) that it would have been much more difficult to convince america and congress to go to war in iraq, especially while we were still fighting in afghanistan and had yet to find bin laden, if he simply told the country that invading iraq was a good tactical move at that time, designed to strenghten our foothold in the middle east. america would not have agreed to go to war for merely those reasons. hence the claims of "misleading" as you call it, and hence the enormous importance of that "misleading". if bush had told the TRUTH about why he wanted to invade iraq, we very likely would not be there right now.
all of this comes down, for me personally at least, to a feeling of having been deceived, by my own president, in to war. as an american, and an adamant believer in the ideals of freedom and democracy, that's very difficult for me to deal with.
as for going to war being the right decision, i think you know that i would disagree with that. but that's an opinion discussion and neither of us would convince the other. i would have supported going to war in iraq if more time had been given (in order to finish the war in afghanistan and find bin laden first), if bush had been perfectly honest and clear with the public and the world about his reasons, if the american people then gave their consent based on all the real facts and motivations, and if the war was waged under the full auspices and support of the un, instead of unilaterally. and i still hold a naive hope that if we hadn't acted unilatterally, there may not have been any need for war at all. we'll never know now.
as for most democrats believing going to war was the right decision, that was certainly true at the time they voted to do so based on the misleading reasons and evidence that bush presented them soon after the tragedy of 9-11, but it isn't true now. i couldn't find any specific "democrat" figures, but the most recent poll i saw, on cnn, said this:
"As Bush prepares to address the nation Tuesday to defend his Iraq policy, just 40 percent of those responding to the poll said they approved of his handling of the war; 58 percent said they disapproved." CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll - June 28, 2005
granted that's "handling" not whether it was right to go in or not. but it's still a pretty scathing and illuminating figure.
bush's responsibility is to tell america the truth. to admit that he took us to war on false pretenses, and that he did not prepare anything even closely resembling a competent plan to keep the peace after the war, as is grossly more evident every single day.
basically, he needs to take responsibility for being the COMMANDER IN CHIEF of the united states. the leader. the desk where the buck stops. stop blaming everyone else around him, act like a real leader, step up to the plate, and just admit, "I SCREWED UP. I'M SORRY."
that's taking responsibility.
i understand your elaboration of your disagreements but i do not understand the disagreements themselves.
i have followed US foreign policy since Bush I and studied some 20th century US foreign policy, and i in no way was under the impression we were simply going to war due to fear of Saddam's WMD or some kind of connection Saddam had to 9-11. these were bolstering reasons but too simplistic and naive to be the main argument. (i.e. why not attack North Korea, Iran, or Saudi Arabia?)
yes, many like you, have misunderstood the whole context, and if a leader seeks to retain power in a 'representative republic', he needs to convince a majority of people he's right, or at least better than the other guy. Bush won reelection after the discovery of no WMDs, so the people have spoken.
what did Bush screw up exactly? it was the UN and all manner of international intellligence that told us Saddam had WMD, along with our own intelligence. seems like they screwed up. or, maybe everyone was acting in good will and just got it wrong??? (i hardly believe that given the UN oil-for-food scandal)
let's assume pure worldwide political corruption. were all the facts lies or were there some real facts in there? or, were the facts facts and leaders doing what leaders do by valuing certain sets of facts over others?
the firing of George Tenet might have been a good idea. you're problem is you think you can judge past events given current knowledge. in your world no matter which way Bush acted he'd have screwed up because there wasn't world peace immediately.
as for democrats (and the world) supporting the war and the pre-war intelligence, just go back and see how the democrats insisted on another war resolution basically saying the same thing as a previous one, just so they could vote for it (to look good politically). they looked at the same intelligence Bush looked at and came to the same conclusion. Bush didn't draw up a sketch and fool them.
look at the 9 UN resolutions regarding Iraq. one of the earliest of which said that if Saddam violated the cease-fire terms of the first Gulf War, we could take military action against him. he'd violated those terms every year since the gulf war. we could have gone to war with or without WMD.
but Clinton warned us of Saddam's WMD. Clinton's policy was regime change. you act as if Bush came along and all of a sudden we were jumping into Iraq. remember the first world trade center attackers (1998) were connected to Iraq. this is pre-Bush. 9-11 gave us the extra will we needed to take Clinton's regime change policy and actually enact it, but maybe not enough will, given how short people's memories are.
Many Republican strategists are anticipating that his choice will be Judge Edith Clement of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though they stressed that remained uncertain.
"I'm comfortable where we are in the process," the president said shortly after noon, during an appearance with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "The best way to put it is I'll let you know when I'm ready to tell you who it is."
of course this is much sooner than expected - in order to distract from the whole rove debacle.
9pm tonight.
I wonder... is it "chomping at the bit" or "the bait". I am never sure.
chomping at the bit...activity before a race by the horse
getting ready to start running seems to make sense.
rearing to go..same sort of deal.
shoot e, i was going to post a new thread on this... :) you beat me to the punch.
still checking his creds... have to admit, not knowing anything about him when i first saw that bush had nominated him, the first thing that i thought was, "whoa, he's really really young. he's going to be a supreme court justice for a VERY long time"
het, certainly worth its own thread. i'm sure ppl on both sides have plenty to disagree with.
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