Gah! :smack: I knew better than to check in on this thread in the middle of a busy day.
No one is saying Bush wanted to go to war to boost anyone’s morale!
They are saying he and his administration likely put a more positive spin on things in an effort to boost the nation’s morale prior to taking on the war, and that this something that leaders everywhere do in times of armed conflict.
And with that, I’m out of here for now.
Sorry if I missed something. I read PRR in post #86: “On the smaller stuff, I will contend that all the jingoism, all the fear-mongering, all the “bring it on” stuff (that Bush himself concedes now was a mistake, btw) was pure posturing that could only have had “morale-building” at its aim.”
Seems to me Bush was selling F.U.D. in order to coax the US to war and not spinning for morale. Guess I am just missing how morale is working in here and I’ll stick with the fun of endlessly debunking the willfully blind here who think Bush & Co. were truthful and saved the US from the evil Iraqis.
Do you have some examples of what you consider this positive spin? I don’t think anyone is considering statements that we’ve got the best army and the bravest soldiers or that we fight on the side of good lies or worthy of any rebuttal. We’re disputing the justification for war, which doesn’t have a heck of a lot to do with the nation’s morale. Except maybe admitting we’re going to war for bogus reasons wouldn’t be good for morale.
You point out a mistake that is made a surprisingly large number of times on a board devoted to fighting ignorance. Even between posters, there is a quick trigger to call something a lie, when the only evidence is that it is a mistake. When it comes to Bush the incidence gets ratcheted up even more. Any mistake from Bush, particularly one having to do with the war, immediately becomes a lie.
The fact of the matter is that the two things are not synonymous. and that there is an additional burden of proof for a mistake to be a lie, i.e., that the person who spoke in error did so knowingly.
I would think people could agree on that, and level their accusations accordingly. No?
But just because it isn’t a lie doesn’t mean it wasn’t criminal. For example, I work under some environmental regulations that state, in part, that it is illegal to knowingly discharge effluent containing chrome in excess of 5ppm and then there are a lot of civil and criminal penalties listed.
If I have a tank full of effluent and decide to dump it, I can’t take just anyone’s word for it that it’s below the legal limit, and I can’t avoid testing it and claim “Aha, I didn’t knowingly dump anything. I had no idea what the chrome content of that waste was, and I’m as shocked as you are.”, and I can’t just choose not to believe all the people who tell me it is over the regulatory limit.
It’s my responsibility to know what’s in that tank, and the word used to describe people who don’t find out is inmate. There’s such a thing as criminal ignorance, and invading Iraq without knowing the extent of the threat they offered may well rise to that level, depending on how hard you had to work to remain ignorant.
If I can go to jail for not knowing something it was my job to know why not President Bush? I’m not saying he’s guilty, I’d have to hear a lot of evidence first, but if I was on the grand jury I might vote to indict.
I agree with what you are saying there.
I am also shocked that you do not see whole web sites that detail, with cites, over 900 instances of Bush & Co. perverting the truth in order to make a case for war as not compelling.
If it were libruls nitpicking one statement then sure. But it is not one statement but literally hundreds and it is not nitpicking semantics. Bush and his cronies provably lied (yes lied) as well as misrepresented the evidence they were absolutely in possession of in the lead up to the war. It was one monstrous spin machine and it really is not debatable that they merely misspoke or were misled by vague CIA/NSA/DIA/etc intelligence.
Again, it is PROVABLE and INCONTROVERTIBLE. The cites for that are in this thread. Or pick up one of a number of books that speaks to this.
In short it is a mistake when you misspeak once. It is not a mistake when you repeat the same falsities over the course of months with a clear goal in mind.
I am not trying to absolve Bush of his misdeeds. I am no fan of the man. My only point goes to claims of lying. Something is either a lie or it isn’t. It’s really that simple.
I’m a little confused by your response. You say you agree, then seem to not agree. As I just posted. Something is either a lie or it is not. Someone either spoke an untruth while knowing it to be untrue or he didn’t.
Most important yet, something is a fact or it isn´t.
So when the Bush administration said that they knew for a fact not only that Iraq had WMDs but also that they knew where the WMDs where, they where lying. After all you can´t have factual knowledge of something that doesn´t exist.
No, it’s pretty simply. **Whack-a-Mole ** understands perfectly the nuances and distinctions between knowing lies and totally innocent mistaken utterances. He is simply saying flat out that Bush lied. That’s what the evidence suggests. You are simply burying your head when it comes to the cites you are being given. The 935 false statements are not stated by the cite given merely to have been false. The cite goes further and makes a very convincing case that Bushco knew that the statements were false. That’s called lying.
I notice you’ve ducked any kind of response to my last post by the way. It seems to me that in your post #32 when you said: “In order to do that, it is incumbent upon [the executive] to put the most attractive face on the action possible” what you were really meaning was it’s OK for them to mislead. And further, by implication, that that is what Bushco did.
It’s just that when it comes to admitting this, you have to use euphemisms like “most attractive face possible” because you can’t bring yourself to say straight out that what you are talking about is misleading people.
Let’s take them nice and easy. In fact, one at a time. Apologists ready?
Try this one:
Lie or not? Says right there that the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded days earlier they couldn’t be.
Note: all cites from The Center for Public Integrity
934 to go…
I agree in general that people may scream “lie” on some point or other that does not merit it because they dislike the person saying it (or what they are saying).
I think Bushco, in their effort to drive the country to war, intentionally deceived AND outright lied. Moreover they did it repeatedly and so often that there is no way it can be chalked up to a mistake or minor spin. Trying to dodge the overwhelming evidence with nitpicking semantics that do zero to mitigate any of it is just willfully ignorant or intentionally argumentative.
Seems to me such things as **Red Fury ** points out are clearly “lies” and not mistakes or erroneous recommendations, unless you’re willing to concede that Bush and every advisor he has is hopelessly illiterate.
It’s really astonishing to me how strictly “lying” gets defined by Bush’s defenders–you’d think THEY were being accused of lying.
Belive it or not, I think you are correct! :eek:
But not like you think: it only seems to you that they are lies - which of course doesn’t make them so.
Take Red’s post as an example. To me, not being a Bush-hayter, there are several perfectly acceptable reasons for this. The info on the trailers may not have filtered back up to Bush by the time he made those comments; the report may not yet have been vetted for accuracy, or even that the trailers in question were the ones being examined. (IIRC, there was widespread speculation that Hussein, in the game of cat-and-mouse that he was playing, was moving them around to avoid detection and perhaps using some as innocent decoys); Bush may not have been referring to the trailers at all but perhaps something else; we have only the word of whoever Red is quoting; etc., etc.
Proof is not proof if logical alternatives exist as to what it purports to prove. I’ve seen nothing in this thread that couldn’t have other, legitimate explanations.
And frankly, you guys appear to be grasping at straws here. The big meme the last several years has been that Bush knew full and well that Iraq didn’t have WMD and lied about it so as to prosecute a war that wanted for personal reasons…usually given as: avenge daddy/steal Iraq’s oil/make Cheney-Haliburton rich.
Now, having been called on to offer incontrovertible proof that this is the case and being unable to provide it, you resort to hairsplitting of one sort or another so as to make a case of “if it looks like a duck”, etc.
This question is far too important to make if-it-looks-like-a-duck assumptions. Either Bush deliberately, knowingly lied in order to justify a war he wanted to pursue for personal reasons, or he didn’t…and again no proof has been offered that he did.
In any war, there are thousands of apparent inconsistencies between what this person said or knew and what someone else said or knew. There can even be questions as to whether they actually knew it or only thought they did (and I’m talking about people on both sides here).
So I would say to the OP: No, unless incontrovertible proof can be offered to the contrary, Bush did not lie to justify invading Iraq for bad reasons.
I will be out the rest of the day.
And it’s astonishing to me how sloppily lying gets defined by you and other Bush detractors.
As I said just above, this question of whether or not Bush deliberately lied us into a war that would have been unjustified otherwise is far too important to be making if-it-walks-like-a-duck assumptions.
Either you know for a fact that Bush did so, or you don’t. Assumptions and what things ‘look like’ don’t count.
Alas, if the same level of stringent, hairsplitting nitpickery would had been used to analyze and refute the Bush administration claims about the threat of Iraq WMD a war may have been aborted and a whole lot of people wouldn´t be dead.
With that standard for drawing definitive conclusions, no one would ever get convicted of any crime at all, absent a confession, which could always be withdrawn. Juries would constantly return verdicts of “Gosh, we don’t really know. All the evidence says guilty, but there may be some other explanation that the defense attorney didn’t think of, and besides we might not even be real but characters in someone’s dream.”
Which BTW is why I’d like to see Bush stand trial on criminal charges. Because juries can and do conclude things that are “beyond a reasonable doubt”, not “beyond any possible or imaginable doubts whatsoever.”
Bush went to war because his “advisors” told him that allowing saddam to stay in power would result in:
Then he should not have made a categorical statement of fact.
Then he should not have made a categorical statement of fact.
Then he should not have made a categorical statement of fact.
I suppose you could use that argument about anything reported after the fact, right? What would constitute adequate context? Full video?
You have a false assumption hrere. I, and I think many others, do not assume “personal reasons.” I’m perfectly willing to assume that President Bush and his administration had motivators beyond the personal for gathering and increasing popular support for a war in Iraq. But I do not believe that any collection of noble intentions justifies general deception in pursuit of that support.
Believe it or not, there are those of us who are not your idea of “Bush-haters” who nonetheless don’t care much for being deceived by our leaders, regardless of political stripe.
And it sure looks like you’re being just as knee-jerk in support of the President as those you decry are in opposition. So, what are your conditions for “incontrovertible proof?” Is there really any evidence which would make you consider the possibility of dishonesty and deception regarding the Iraq war?
.
So, when your kids say an alien beamed into your house and broke the lamp, they and the ball they were playing with had nothing to do with it, do you apply the same careful analysis as above?
Philip Johnson talking about evolution has nothing on you, my friend.