I’m not sure if you can see this w/o a subscription, but Gallup has the number @ 50% so far answering, “Yes, deliberately misled” to the question, " Do you think the Bush administration deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or not?": http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=1633
And, as is amply demonstrated here, Team Bush and “Best Info Available @ the Time”, Team Bush was** deliberately “imprecise” to the point of making statements known to be untrue** (perhaps these constitute “lies”, perhaps not) in their attempts to persuade the electorate to back the invasion of Iraq. They went against what was the intel available to them at the time. The info available to Team Bush was that Hussein was unlikely to attack the US; however, however the war was sold as a war of pre-emption.
AFAICT, the intel was saying that Iraq wasn’t going to attack the US directly or by proxy. By definition, w/o an impending attack, there can be no pre-emptive war. The war was sold as an act of pre-emption.
Drop by the thread if you actually can dispute this.
If you’ve only hand waving, don’t bother.
Uh, Merijeek, you’re sounding a little…off. No, you’re sounding a lot off. If you have a beef with something Bricker posted, re-post it. If you have a beef with something someone else posted, and are taking it out on Bricker…uh…
Never once said I had “ALL” the data. Never once claimed I was in posession of omniscience in regards to Saddam’s WMD. Still, it doesn’t take omniscience to be able to have enough of an educated viewpoint to determine if someone else’s view is wildly out of touch with the publically available facts. Like I’ve said since then, I have been hoping and praying(well, as close as an agnostic ever gets anyway) that I was wrong and that Bush had some super-secret intel which was solid as a rock and would bear fruit on the ground. I can’t bear the thought that thousands upon thousands of people are now dead as a result of a war which anyone who did their homework(like I did), based on publically available evidence, could have seen was unnecessary at the time. The public info pointed to the idea that containment was working, with a high confidence level, especially since inspectors were back in-country and getting full access and co-operation.
I never said “Saddam doesn’t have anything at all, Bush is lying.” I said “The public facts don’t jive with Bush’s presentations. If he wants to start a war over whatever secret info he has then he should make it public for examination and verification before he does something which can’t be undone. At very least so that his constituents(where the political power is theoretically vested in the US) can have a real understanding of the threat he claims we face. I am not willing to start a major conflict unilaterally on basis of what I have seen and what I have seen makes me dubious about what Bush claims he has.”
It was only after he went ahead with the war and even more bits and pieces, like the memo in the OP, came to light that I converted to a “Bush was full of shit” viewpoint.
FWIW, they lost me after the UN presentation. After I saw Powell giving that pathetic presentation I know we had nothing. I was also kind of embarrased for my country trying to pull that off, it was really weak.
There were plenty of dubious statements and outrights lies prior to Powell’s dog & pony show at the UN albeit, in hindsight, I can see how many Americans might have been prone to giving their Government the benefit of the doubt up to that point. I say that because it’s also become readily apparent since, just how trusting so many of you are of the political/ruling classes. As to why that is, what with the samples of Vietnam, Nixon, Reagan, or even Clinton, in such recent historical memory, well, it beats the hell out of me.
Whew! I just finished reading all four and something pages of this trainwreck of a thread.
Bricker. I have the desire to scold you like a child who has declared war on a hornets nest. Yes, you are doing an admirable job of dispatching the hornets by slapping them down from the sky as they appear. Being particularly dimwitted, these hornets haven’t even been able to sting you as of yet. They really are simple, predictable, foolish creatures. But, it’s really just not a good idea. Nothing good came come of it.
The topic of this thread started out to be how tired all of the Bush bashers are from all of the mindless Bush bashing. I can see how it would be. Day after day Bush, being the President of the United States of America, is always saying something in public or implementing some new policy. There is a whole lot of material there to get through. That’s a lot of work to bash everything he does. It’s clear that a lot of you don’t take breaks either. This is a 24/7 gig. It’s a big part of who you people are.
So, you’re tired. Physically and emotionally. You’re drained. I can see that, I really can. But, now you’ve found a new hobby! A new way to play the same old game. It’s easy, too! You don’t even have to learn any new tricks or rules. It’s called Bricker bashing! The same bizarre, unfounded, insane type of allegations that are regularly made against Bush can be targetted at anyone. Suddenly you all aren’t so tired anymore.
Bricker, like most sane people, doesn’t even agree with your repeated mantra that BUSHliedBUSHLIEDbushLIED! How dare he. So, he is the perfect target for your petty rage. Since he dares to disagree with you all, it’s clear that you feel free from any restraint in your attacks on him. Make stuff up and attribute it to him. Ignore the rules of debate and make the onus on him to prove everything, even your own statements. Take what he posts and twist it beyond recognition to make him look EVIL. Keep at it, and you can make him out to be as evil as Bush even!
Bricker, my friend, come back away from that nest. Seriously, that’s enough. Lower the flyswatter. Drop the can of hornet spray. You’ve done enough for one day.
Debaser, do you have anything, anything at all, to say about the cited news articles? Perhaps you’d like to pretend that literally all we’ve been saying is “Bush lied!”, and that we haven’t time and again posted actual evidence of this? I’m sure that it makes you feel better to think this, if what processess have led you to your current conclusions can be called thinking, but they don’t actually address any of the points made, other than claiming that we’ve been making them a lot.
Wow, Debased, you’ve done it! The entirely content-free post, innocent of even the implication of argument, it entirely ignores even the suggestion of rebuttal, gamboling freely about without ever once touching the ground! One gasps with admiration!
You even manage to suggest that your political opponents are fools and knaves without any reference whatsoever to the actual subject of discussion! You depict you and yours as the hounded victims of the Vast Conspiracy without the least acknowledgement of the mountain of facts hulking just over your shoulder!
It is a masterpiece of disingenuous innocence. The Leader would be proud!
Next is the task for Attack-Iraq-Bush-Backers is to explain why it’s okay for a government to govern w/o the consent of the governed. Obviously, the decisions of the electorate to back the invasion were made based on deceptive information- malinfo.
Well, that was a spot of fun, trog-bashing, and all that.
But in accordance with my awesome powers as the OP, I’d like to turn the discussion back to the original point. How come the dog didn’t bark? Clearly, we can breeze right past the Vast Liberal Conspiracy because, well, after all, they didn’t, did they?
Next conjecture: that the news isn’t, everybody already knows this stuff, its like revealing new evidence that implicates Lee Harvey Oswald in the death of JFK. All open minds have been reached, only such diehards (as herein represented) that hunker down in a bunker mentality remain, and they are beyond anything short of surgical intervention (which I would not support. Just to make that clear.)
Which kind of means that only a response would have made this story “get legs”. That if the Bushiviks came out in fulsome and blistering attack mode, that would have been news. Not the man biting the dog, but suing the dog for assault. And, as you have certainly noticed, they were entirely silent on this revelation. Now, to my mind, that is a tacit acceptance, since the released memo explicitly and clearly refutes key Bushivik contention. Which is to say that they recognize what we recognize: that there are no more undecided to fight over.
I am dismissing out of hand the opposite conspiracy theory: that the Bushivik minions have a throttle hold on the media such that they can smother this story a-borning. But for some reason, this potential bombshell dropped and didn’t go bang. How very odd.
What does Iraq, a sanctioned and crippled country, have which makes it worth it to the UK to become the US’s enemy? I figure Blair and co realized the backlash which would arise from refusing to support the war from the US. See how the French have been villified? See how Admin officials are cutting non-coalition countries out of any say or opportunities in rebuilding Iraq? See senior Admin officials(Cheney? Rumsfeld? I can’t recall exactly who) saying tha there would be payback for France’s opposition to the US in the Security Council? Given this alternative, and the fact that their own commitment would be very small compared to the US commitment, going along with the war and preserving good relations with the US may have been the lesser of two evils in Blair’s estimation. Some, like Robin Cook, obviously disagreed to the point where they were willing to sacrifice their own careers than participate in the war, but most were not.
Frankly I think the involvement of the UK is the only saving grace in the whole thing. Areas patrolled by the UK troops are more peaceful and their troops don’t seem to offend the Iraqis like the US troops do. They’ve taken far fewer losses, even proportionally. The UK standing by the US during this damn fool war has made quite a difference.
The press won’t give it show-opening attention (or front page above the fold coverage) out of fear of being shut out by the administration in retaliation.
Because they’re all waiting for one major news outlet to have the balls to give it said level of coverage (ie - The NY Times, The Washington Post, CBS), thereby giving it the “credibility” they need to also cover it. So they don’t get shut out by the adminstration.
Because they’re quivering wimps at the threat of being labeled “The Liberal Media”.
Because once Bush’s negative ratings hit the tipping point, then they’ll cover it, and not before (because the press are a bunch of pussies - like a lot of us - and only want to be associated with A Winner).
Because there’s a third rung to the ladder, that is, those that aren’t forcibly opposed to or vehemently for Bush. The people who just don’t give a shit either way. And why lead with something that won’t draw them in? At this point it’s just not sexy enough.
You just watch. Once the press gets the merest hint that this story will garner a ratings bump, they’ll pimp it for all it’s worth. Now with more Graphics!!