When I first read of Paul O’Neill’s accusations about the Bush policy on Iraq, the first thing I thought was, “OK, what’s his angle?” I think fresh off this Pete Rose thing, that would be anybody’s reaction to something like this. Make a splash, get people talking, be on TV so you can (surprise!) sell your book.
But then O’Neill goes on 60 Minutes and swears he’s not getting any money. OK, so think back–he was fired because he disagreed with Bush on economic policy, right? So maybe he has an axe to grind about being let go?
Of course, the administration decides to take the easy way out in attempting to discredit the claim–they blame Bill Clinton and 9/11.
*During the early months of his presidency, Bush said the administration’s Iraq policy focused on “fly-overs and fly-betweens and looks” in an effort to monitor Hussein’s military and weapons programs.
“And then, all of a sudden, September the 11th hit,” Bush said. “And as the president of the United States, my most solemn obligation is to protect the security of the American people. I took that duty very seriously.”*
Asked specifically whether O’Neill was correct in saying that planning for the war had begun far ahead of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush said that when he had become president he had inherited a policy of “regime change” from former President Clinton and had decided to adopt it as his own.*
I thought we had moved away from this. I thought the administration had moved on from the 9/11 reason to the WMD/Saddam is bad/liberate the Iraqis reason. I thought everything Bill Clinton did was bad and GWB is here to fix all of Clinton’s mistakes.
Why? The typical Bush voter doesn’t have any critical thinking skills beyond “Bush told me this, so it must be true.” Why should they be willing to accept the facts, when they haven’t been for the last 36 months?
I understand the guy’s quite wealthy, so money isn’t going to be a motive anyway. Of course, some are going to think he spilled to get revenge for being fired.
Are you all seriously arguing that Bush didn’t advocate getting rid of Saddam waaaaaay back when he was campaigning for president? Does anyone seriously believe that on 9-11 Bush woke up and decided to get rid of Saddam? Regime change in Baghdad has been US policy since 1991. Does anyone seriously dispute this?
If you’d like to talk about WAY back, the State Dept admits that since 1945 the US has attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments and crush more than 30 ‘People’s Movements’ against oppressive or insufferable regimes. It’s bombed about 25 countries and caused untold casualty throughout the world in the (largely) unspoken name of empire building.
After bombing Iraq in 1991, the US wound up w/ military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Omand, and the UAE. After bombing Yugoslavia, it got bases in Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Hungary, Bosnia, and Croatia. (I guess Montenegro sat that one out.) Recently, after bombing it, bases sprang up in Afghanistan and many of its unspellable and moreso unpronouncable neighbors. (William Blum, 2002)
Now, we can spread the blame around the pols and the media, but it’s we who believe blindly and don’t care to listen to what’s really being said, we who sit back and worry more about our day to day bothers until a bomb of some kind or another lands on our doorstep. Yesterday I informed an intelligent friend of mine some of the ways that China has a terrible record of violating women’s rights, and she informed me the deal she’d just gotten on a pantsuit (made in China) was impossible to pass up anyway. This thinking brings the bombs. So long as we care more about ourselves above all others, it won’t matter who the president is.
"Two top Bush administration officials said yesterday that America would accept the continuation of Saddam Hussein‘s regime if Iraq disarms, apparently backing away from the official U.S. policy of seeking the ouster of the dictator.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said in television interviews yesterday that a disarmed Saddam could remain in power, and Mr. Powell said that is now President Bush‘s position.
“Remember where regime change came from — it came from the previous administration,” Mr. Powell said on NBC‘s “Meet the Press.”
All Saddam has to do, apparently, was to rid himself of the weapons he never had in the first place.
(I am reminded of the Super Death Cop Robot Machine in Robocop that blasted the shit out of some guy after repeating over and over "You have fifteen seconds to comply…)
Miller, consider this wild and wacky possibility: There are true believers on the right and left, and then a mass of folks in the middle who can be swayed either way, and it is they who decide elections. And that telling them that they are idiots unless they think as you do is not the way to win them over.
Let us imagine a hypothetical voter who went for either candidate last time, but supported the war, and thinks Bush has done some good things and is an OK guy, but who nevertheless also has a good opinion of, say, Howard Dean and thinks he might be a better President.
What will that voter take away from the rhetoric he hears in a place like the SDMB? Not that there is another party with ideas and goals that wants his alligience, but that he is thought of as an idiot because he doesn’t completely hate Bush.
furt, m’lad, those are the very essences, and they spring from the font of compassion, the ever-guiding lodestone of certain very special conservatives.
But we worry, we worry that men like Cheney and Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. arent spending enough time with their families, we wish to correct this unfortunate situation soonest.
And we reserve our deepest concern for our own dear George, his situation is brutally unfair, he might well have made a splendid Commissioner of Baseball. But he is pressed to service beyond his mettle, he is Francis the Talking Mule runing the Preakness. He is a profoundly mediocre mad burdened with the delusion that he is a Leader of Men, a Collossus who bestrides the world.
Perhaps in Crawford, Laura can undertake his rehabilitation, reconnect him with a realistic assessment of his true capacity. Some yoga, perhaps, some chamomile tea, some transformative form of therapy.
Just so long as he’s not in a position to order people to go kill people. That would be nice.
I fail to see how this is “blame Clinton”. Frankly, I’d consider it the greater insult to insinuate that Clinton’s administration WASN’T in favor of Saddam’s regime going the way of the dodo.
So we’re left wondering… do O’neill’s claims refer to a general “Boy, we sure wish Saddam was gone” attitude, or is he claiming that Bush was hoping for THE EXACT WAR that we got, and was just looking for an excuse? Because if it’s the former, I fail to see any controversy… but then, I’m not the type who would accuse Bush of, say, being in league with the devil for helping an old lady cross the street, either.
Hey, I voted for GWB. Of course, I have rule about voting to oust the incumbent. I was already gonna vote against him this time round. I knew that as soon as I knew he won. Idecided that between the two, Gore was the more “incumbent.”
IIRC, regime change in Iraq was a matter of US law since 1998(?). The method of regime change wasn’t specifically mentioned as a full scale invasion of course. It was more along the lines of supporting Iraqi insurgents against Hussein. IIRc, we’d’ve been happy with just different Baathis.
Chalabi and the INC are still due some money that was earmaked for them because of this law. Of course their funds were suspended over “imprecise” accounting. They couldn’t or wouldn’t account for millions of US taxpayers’ dollars, so the State Dept hired some accountants to help them. This didn’t help the INC keep track of its money any better, so the INC’s funding was cut off. SOmehow, Chalabi’s advanced mathematics degree and years of banking experience weren’t enough for him t be able to keep the books straight. I wonder why that was :smack: .
The Machine didn’t repeat the same phrase “over and over”, it duly counted the seconds down to zero, then blasted away. The malfunction was that it failed to register the fact that it’s opponent duly disarmed himself, as requested, just as Iraqis have done.
To make full use of your analogy, let’s recollect the action of people around the machine and it’s victim in the movie. Some were running away, some were screaming in horror, some were trying to fix the machine or turn it off (nobody was organizing a protest or drafting a censure).
Well, who was trying to give instruction to the “Bush machine” that Iraq has disarmed? Messages like “War is not an answer!” and “No blood for oil!” don’t count, as any programmer can tell you. Who was there simply repeating “Iraq has disarmed”, over and over? Not a single stinking head of any lousy state ever said that.