PunditLisa, but the 9/11 Commision say that Bush and Cheney are either wrong or lying about ties between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. And wait… don’t they have access to the same intelligence reports? And aren’t they supposedly independent (i.e without an agenda beyond seeking the truth) and therefore infinitely more trustworthy and honourable than someone who may be looking to use this to get his administration reelected?
Your reasoning is backward. First, you see if someone is telling the truth (and, if not, *why * not). Then, you use that conclusion to decide if he’s honorable or not. Unfortunately, we know Cheney was still not telling the truth as recently as yesterday.
I’m waiting for Punditlisa to let us in on the whoosh.
I lived in Denmark for a few years. Media coverage sucks. Even with the internet one couldn’t possibly get near to the level of saturation we have here. But if Rune wants to argue from a point of ignorance, so be it.
As for the whole, “We need Danes more than they need us”, well…Denmark is a very proud country. They have gone from being a very powerful European nation to a tiny, helpless, well-run welfare state. Such is life.
I do wish Rune would do a little more research, and perhaps take into account the various viewpoints expressed here instead of digging in his little heels. An open mind would be helpful. Danes are such a wonderful people, and this fella is giving them a bad name.
The report is only preliminary, but you can read it here
are the relevent bits.
Didn’t Dick Cheney read the memo?
They’ll be heaping this whole thing on Tenet soon enough.
Is there room on the pire for one more?
Looks like the Rummy team is fighting back from their recent fall from grace.
Of course you don’t care if the attack was in our national interests- you’re not an American.
Not all lies are of equal consequence.
Lies that lead to the deaths of thousands of people are some of the very most serious kinds of lies.
Lies that cost hundreds of billions of dollars are some of the most serious kinds of lies.
Lies that thwart the American electorate’s right to deny consent to the government are some of the most grave kinds of lies.
In contrast, most truth mangling done by politicans does not rise to any level near the lies that are alleged against the GWB Admin.
As much as I hate analogies, consider that just as a lie about an opion on property tax reform issues and a lies that lead a nation into war are both lies, both a swimming pool and the Pacific Ocean are bodies of water.
I think that at some popints Hussein did fund the MeK.
We know that recent presidential advisor Richard Perle decided to help fund this terrorist group in January 2004 despite US laws against aiding such terrorists.
Yay!
down with newspeak
newspeak must die
Allow me to humbly point out that this is not at all obvious as it apears that this is a widespread practice done everyday.
But a great summation.
It’s embarassingly bad form to do so. I’d be embarassed to do so anyway.
Well, you folks had your reasons for joining in the war, but it was happening with or without you; it was a US creation, with sort-of UN authorization. So the US and UN reasons are determinative of why the invasion/occupation happened; if your nation had other reasons for convincing yourselves of why helping out would be a Good Thing, that may say something positive about Denmark, but it says nothing about what motivations drove the invasion.
Bremer seemed like a capable man, too.
The new Iraq resolution was the seventh Iraq resolution passed by the UNSC since Saddam’s statue was toppled. Have any of them not been unanimous? I don’t see that this tells us anything significant.
PunditLisa, back in 2000, I had a great deal of respect for Cheney, dating all the way back to the Ford administration. I figured he’d be one of the ‘grownups’ who would steady this administration. Boy howdy, was I wrong.
But it’s one thing to have been wrong then, and another thing to retain one’s illusions about Cheney, given his track record of the past three and a half years. He has been the one who has consistently made the most outrageous unsubstantiated claims about WMDs (especially nukes), the Iraq-terrorism connection, and who knows what else.
Yeah…That was what I was thinking too. The first clue was the “Cheney’s got access to intelligence that I don’t” line…which is of course a direct paraphrase of the sort of lines we were being fed before the invasion of Iraq to back up the claim that Saddam must have WMD because the Administration says so.
And the statement “His word is good enough for me because I think Dick Cheney is an honorable man” was, of course, completely over the top…And, no doubt a reference to the “But Brutus is an honorable man” speech from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”.
Excellent, whoosh, PunditLisa!
Has the poll the CPA took of Iraqis in May been linked to here?
It has now.
Some things to note, in terms of things getting worse over there:
- Confidence in the CPA has gone from 47% in November to 11% last month.
- Confidence in Coalition forces is in the same ballpark.
- 81% of Iraqis think better of al-Sadr than they did 3 months earlier, with half of those thinking “much better” of him.
- 23% of Iraqis support Allawi; 63% oppose him. (With al-Sadr, it’s 67-29 in favor.)
- Only half of Iraqis feel safe in their own neighborhoods.
- By 64-14%, Iraqis feel recent events, including Fallujah and the al-Sadr uprising) have made Iraq more unified.
- Coalition forces are seen as occupiers by 92% of Iraqis, and as liberators/peacekeepers by 5%.
- By 61-29%, most Iraqis feel nobody will get punished for Abu Ghraib. Of the 29% that feel somebody will get punished, over half think only ‘the little people’ will get punished.
And on it goes.
Remember, this is the CPA’s own poll.
Also of note: pollsters reported that many more people who were approached and asked to participate in the polling refused to do so. This probably means something important, and I probably have no idea what.
(53% of Elucidator had no clue, 23% responded that it was all Bush’s fault, what was the question again?, 14% said J Lo’s butt, 13% were distracted by a shiny object.)
Man, new Rummy bullshit. We’re no better then the hostage takers.
From the article I just linked.
And
I bet these guys could find a an interpretation of the law in which sawing a prisoner’s head off is legal. :rolleyes:
“We need to show them we mean business” or some such crap.
A couple people have asked for a cite about Bush refusing to attack Zarqawi’s bases in Kurd controlled Iraq because that might hurt his chances to get a war going:
I want to expand on a point I made earlier, that further shows just how much the neocons in the administration are ignoring earlier statments, plugging their ears, and yelling “la la la la la la”.
So they are still pinning the reasoning for the war on what Powell said. Even though Powell himself had this to say on the topic to meet the press:
So, they should have at least been honest and said
…don’t confuse me with the facts!
“Hell no”?
These people are clearly immune to evidence or reason. The sooner we’re rid of them the better.
I’ve been waiting for the Press Secretary to make th etranscript available @ www.whitehouse.gov . I assume that Dr, Josh wouldn’t run with it if it weren’t credible:
Q Can I ask about Vice President Cheney, because yesterday he repeated what is a very controversial claim. He said that Saddam Hussein had long-established ties with al Qaeda. Does the President believe that Saddam Hussein had long-established ties with al Qaeda?
MR. McCLELLAN: We certainly talked about the ties with terrorism between the – between the regime that was removed from power, and we talked about those ties prior to the decision to remove that regime from power. So that was well-documented. Secretary Powell went before the United Nations and talked about some of those ties to terrorism, as well. And Zarqawi is certainly a senior al Qaeda associate who was in Iraq prior to the decision to go in and remove the regime from power.
Q There’s also al Qaeda in the United States. That does not mean the United States is cooperating with those members of al Qaeda. Just by the presence of someone does not mean there’s a cooperation.
MR. McCLELLAN: But, remember, we’re talking about an oppressive regime that was in power in Iraq that exercised control over that country. And go back and look at what we documented, Norah. We documented all this, and I think that’s what the Vice President was referring to.
Q So today you’re saying the President does agree there were long –
MR. McCLELLAN: We stand by what we’ve said previously, in terms of the regime’s ties to terrorism, yes. And I think that’s what the Vice President was referring to.
Q The President said there were no ties in the run up to the war.
MR. McCLELLAN: No, Helen, that’s a mischaracterization. There were clear ties to terrorism between the regime –
Q He said there were no ties with al Qaeda.
MR. McCLELLAN: – certainly supporting suicide bombers in the Middle East.
Q Are you repudiating what the President said?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think you’re talking about September 11th.