Hell, no!
Not one person I know outside the US ever believes a damn thing emanating from the States WRT foreign policy - hence the overcynicism that means that, even when the US is acting for altruistic reasons, people instantly look for the “real” motive.
My visceral, off-the-cuff reaction is :
I can’t wait until we vote this incompetent fucker out of office. The egregious diplomatic miscalculations by this administration are sqandering this country’s political capital with no benefit whatsoever. It becomes more and more obvious every day, with every piece of news, that he never intended anything but a war, despite his pathetic “war is a last resort” line to the public. The decision was made years ago. They shamelessly exploited September 11th, alienated most of the world, and now they’ve presented phony evidence to the UN commission, all as a means to this end.
It looks like the clown’s going to get his war, but it will be up to his successors to clean up the mess. I hope that the damage can be undone, and I also hope this is a lesson to Americans that we need to practice democracy responsibly. It does matter who the President is. We need to elect leaders, not vacuous figureheads.
Now I’ll go over to GD and maybe post the same thing in a reasoned and level-headed tone. Actually, I’ll probably just quote somebody else and go “Me too!” 
My reaction is the same as cuauhtemoc. This clown NEEDS to be voted out ASAP. He and his father(the shameless liar and predecessor), and their Minions have been planning this probably since GHWB was voted out and replaced by Clinton. 9-11 simply made things that much easier.
THere’s nothing like wasting years of pseudo-trust and foreign policy with a few words and a few documents.
Sam
What the fuck type of crack have you been smoking? Seriously. You know, the situation is bad enough without resorting to exagerrations and mistruths.
The US wouldn’t risk it’s integrity for short term gains? WTF? Do you know anything about history? One of the constants of American foreign policy has been about risking integrity for short term gains. The entire Bay of Pigs fiasco involved the CIA lying to the Cuban ex-pats, the CIA lying to the president, the President lying to the Cubans, and everyone involved lying to the international community. And then there was the first Gulf War and the stories of massive buildups along the Saudi borders and bringing in actors to tell stories of Iraqi atrocities. And let’s not forget the Gulf of Tonkin. The list goes on and on and on.
Jebus Kris! Get a clue.
I wouldn’t go quite that far back, GaWd. I think by the time he delivered his “Axis of Evil” speech last year, when he announced that our foreign policy would now be governed by a doctrine of “preemption”, he had made the decision that we were going to the brink over Iraq, allies or no allies. Then he and his team started acting like arrogant amateurs, embarrassing this country and generally making a mess of our already-floundering credibility. To suggest that they planned this twelve years ago and have been biding their time since then gives them way too much credit.
Yup. Wouldn’t want to exaggerate the American government’s capacity for telling the truth.
Deer Teecher,
Pleese excuze George from class yestirday. Hee was sick.
Signed, Georges’ mother
I’d just like to add to the pot. What the fuck were they thinking?
I agree that the US probably didn’t forge the documents. But I do think they knew it was a forgery before they released it to the public. And that is fucking irresponsible. Hell, re-forge the document to make it half-believeable. The same day it was releaseed you were caught. Assholes.
They are basically asking people not to support the war. Or not to trust the administration.
Oh, and Nurse Carmen, ich bin ein American, and I have no desire to see, how was it put, a missile screaming up the ass of Saddam. I do hope you are not suggesting that I am any less of an American for opposing the war.
Nonsense. The gubmint has no problem telling the truth if it serves their purpose. It’s just they have no problem lying if it serves their purpose as well, and everyone knows it.
Methinks that Lucy needs an edumacational upgrading in his dictionarial abilities. Lesson #1, Lucy: There’s a difference between “lying” and “making a mistake”.
THAT’s why there’s no outrage.
Now go twist some other scenario to fit your bizarre worldview.
You know, it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t Dubya or his admin who forged the documents.
It’s the fact that they passed them off, without researching them.
Fuck this shit. I am so fucking PISSED.
This is fucking WRONG. Okay? WRONG!!!
SPOOFE, this isn’t a small mistake. This is document used to justify war that is so poorly forged that someone with access to Google could find a mistake. There should be outrage even if it isn’t a lie, for the incompetence.
First rule of leadership: Everything is your fault. If Bush didn’t know about it, he should have. I guess morally speaking, incompetence is better than dishonesty—but neither is a particularly desirable trait for a President.
I related news, the super secret Iraqi drone planes are made of balsa wood and duct tape.
If Saddam has access to duct tape, that alone is the best reason reason so far to go to war :rolleyes:
NurseCarmen, I can’t speak for the “world community”, but certainly most of the people I know in Europe and Latin America hold a very different view of the US - and specially the CIA - willingess to distort the facts, in order to justify or garner support for their foreign policy actions.
To have a taste of the things I am talking about, you can go to the National Security Archives website (timely cover picture) and read US Administration and CIA declassified documents on many conflicts where the US intervened, openly or covertly. For instance,
Iran: In 1953, the British and the Americans plotted the coup on the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh, after he announced his plan to nationalize the oil industry. The New York Times has a very complete and readable dossier. Just a snippet: “Iranians working for the C.I.A. and posing as Communists harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric’s home in a campaign to turn the country’s Islamic religious community against Mossadegh’s government”. One of the guys involved was a Gen. H Norman Schwarzkopf, father of you know who…some families have clearly a thing for the Middle East.
Chile, here formore: In 1970, Salvador Allende won the democratic elections for presidency. Even before he was sworn in, the US Administration and the CIA were plotting to “destabilize” the country. In particular, you can read here the infamous plans to “make their economy scream” by Kissinger and Nixon, plant CIA members as journalists (fair and balanced, you can rest assured), and fake revolts to be blamed on Allende. In 1973 (on a September 11, no less), Augusto Pinochet overthrew Allende with a military coup, lashing out a reign of tortures and “disappearances”, mainly carried out by the DINA. 1 out of every 7 members of the command staff of the DINA were Graduates of the School of Americas, in Fort Benning, GA. Your taxpayer dollars at work.
I could go on: the 1954 coup inGuatemala, against the democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz, the CIA covert operations in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair,…
Extracts of these documents have appered over the years in European and Latin American media, and at least in my case, have helped shaping a deep mistrust in anything the CIA says. In my (perhaps biased) view, this is one of the reasons why the current administration is so lowly regarded in Europe: personally, it reminds me way too much of the Reagan days, and his Iran-Contra people.
**
Oh, don’t you worry, no credibility has been damaged.
I heard what gave away the documents was that they were printed on official Dukes of Hazzard stationary!
I can remember when people thought Nixon had doomed this country, then it was Jimmy Carter, then Reagan, then Bush 1.0, then Clinton, and now Bush 2.0 :rolleyes: When this country’s doomed, we’ll know it because we’ll all be running for our lives.
Exactly. What happens under any administration’s watch rests with the one in charge. It’s called accountablity.
This administration claimed to have examined all the evidence and options very carefully indeed before reluctantly settling on war as a last resort. They’ve had a tough sell, to allies and the American public alike, that the evidence was both credible and sufficient to justify war.
What a technicolor fiasco.
Veb
Before you go castigating others for not reading, you might want to pay little fucking attention yourself:
Moron.