So this may fairly be said to be a source not free of bias. And he’s got a new edition of his book to flog. Nevertheless,
So, the memo cited appears to be genuine, and Downing Street’s response to the implications of its content is, shall we say, an exercise in sidestepping of the main point.
And now, the Pitting: You fucking apologists for the Bush administration, you who insisted they weren’t lying to us, they really did believe there were WMD and that’s why the invasion was necessary, who lapped up Colin Powell’s UN speech, who’ve spent the last couple of years sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “BUSH DIDN’T LIE” – gonna brush this one off too? Got any more contortions you can twist yourself into to explain this away? How about it, huh? At long last, have you enough decency to admit you were wrong? That the fix was in, Bush wanted his Iraq adventure no matter what it took, even to “flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours”?
Hey, I said “appears”, given Downing Street’s not disavowing it. I also pointed out the likely bias of the source. Got evidence to discredit the document or the author? Bring 'em on, I’d like to know how much reliance to place in this, because if it’s genuine it is damning.
Here’s my thinking on the Bush apologists, EFT
Let’s assume you originally support the invasion of Iraq in good faith because you believed everything you were told unquestioningly.
As the evidence that you were lied to piles up, you have two choices.
Choice the First: Admit you were duped.
Now, no one likes to admit that they’ve been fooled (although being fooled is certainly not the same thing as being a fool).
However, with your admission comes the knowledge that your support of the war has gotten over 2000 Americans killed and unknown number injured.
That’s a large burden of guilt to bear and requires direct action to end the war.
Which is why Choice the Second is much more palatable to many Bush supporters-deny, deny, deny.
I’ve seen this with families that have lost their childrenin Iraq.
They’re furious but they direct their anger at the peaceful anti-war protestors.
Why?
Because it’s a whole lot easy thanacknowledging that they supported a lie and now their child is dead forever.
This is compounded by the maneuver that it is silly to pretend it was not planned also before hand: Constantly “catapulting the propaganda” that adds the foolish Iraq war to the justified war against terror in Afghanistan. As the last state of the union address showed, the administration is still demagogically homogenizing the two wars and they calculated that no republican of consequence would ever raise a peep against conjoining the different wars.
How many people think that the bulk of the Bush apologists that come into this thread, rather than address the allegations of the OP, will attack jlzania’s post with accusations of “broad brush,” and “mind reader”?
You know, this is* my * thinking on the issue based on a number of * personal * observations.
I may well be slammed but heh-comes with the territory, doesn’t it?
However, I wasn’t trying to deflect attention from the OP and if I did, I apologize.
On the contrary, you’ve offered the only rationale for the apologists that incorporates any excuse for it, IMO. I can understand that the agony of grief would overthrow the ability to think clearly about why such a cruel loss had to happen.
Anyone got the over/under on when an apologist drops in to post:
":rolleyes: Ho-hum, another BUSH IS TEH SUXXOR!!!11one thread. :rolleyes: "
Seems like as good a time as any to mention this one again.
During the run-up to the invasion, a good friend of mine was chief financial officer of a major wild-well control contractor based in Houston. In October 2002, representatives of his company, and several others, were invited to a US Army headquarters in Florida (Central Command?) where an Army general and a couple of civilian staff from the Bush Administration gave a presentation on the possible scenarios for a Kuwait-style sabotaging of Iraqi oilfields by a retreating Iraqi army, and to hammer out contingency contracts should the well control companies be needed.
So far so good; unlike some other aspects of the invasion, the administration was at least considering contingencies, right? Well, the thing that gave me pause, and that struck my friend to the point that he commented on it, was that the officials, to a man, took the invasion as a given; that is, it was going to come off no matter what.
OK, granted this is anecdotal, third-hand, and I can’t personally verify the story from another source. Nevertheless, I am firmly convinced that anyone who believes the Bush Aministration’s claims that they only went into Iraq as some sort of last resort, must be very naive indeed.
I believe you’re may be overlooking another, more classic reaction: the ends justifies the means. Whatever lies, misinformation, poor intellligence, or the fact the government was simply looking for a reason to invade Iraq, is of little or no consequence because Saddam was removed from power and democracy was spread to the middle east. By only looking at the ends, it makes the means less important. This seems to be the thinking of a majority of conservatives I’ve talked to about these things.
And they do have an iota of a point. Saddam was a murderous, evil tyrant and the world, and Iraq, are better off without him in power (at least for now). And the more democracy in the world better (at least for now). So, some good was accomplished. The problem I see with this view is that it ignores the costs, in money, world peace, and, most importantly, American lives. But most conservatives I speak with seem to take solace in the fact that the true outcome of this war in Iraq won’t be known for another couple decades, so the lead up to the problems leading up to the war becomes less and less important.
Good to see you in here, Airman Doors – you’re a rare (in my experience) example of someone who strongly defended the invasion at first, then over time looked at the evidence, thought it through, and made the difficult decision to change his mind. I wish more of the war’s defenders would/could do the same.
Hamlet, you make a good point. Mighty convenient for the war supporters, isn’t it, that the true worth of the ends won’t be known for so long after we’ve expended the means.
Hey, kaylasdad, thanks. That was a carefully framed title.
[On preview] Metcom, with every day’s fresh reports of bombings, killings, kidnappings and other horrors in Iraq, your question becomes more pertinent. Just how much more shit must those people suffer before the balance shifts?
Tell it to people sitting in the dark, afraid of being killed by either passing American troops or some faction. Tell it to the women who now have fewer rights. Tell it to the jobless, who have watched America rape and warp the Iraqi economy, or been forbidden jobs because they are Iraqi.
Because, of course, the far higher Iraqi death toll doesn’t matter. As foreigners, they are simply cattle for our use.
Besides, “conservative” pretty much equals “sociopath”, as far as I can tell. They don’t care about the harm they have caused
<le sigh>