Here’s another quote from the same article:
Let’s also not forget the genocide that wasn’t in Kosovo. And then there is the bombing of Iraq for the same reason Bush invaded it, not to mention the continued sanctions that killed possibly a million people under Clinton’s watch.
In any case, unless I get real proof, I’m not inclined to believe either Clinton or Bush lied. They have a responsibility to protect this country from foreign enemies, in fact it is their primary responsibility. They can almost never have absolute proof of anything. They have to act on the basis of evidence that is anything but airtight. Sometimes they will be wrong. But that’s all they are: wrong. Being wrong does not make you a liar.
Until it becomes clear to the apologists that there was no real threat at all, either in the present or the foreseeable future.
When it’s done in an attempt to mislead the target audience.
Not until it can be shown that there is, in fact, a forest.
When the “general analysis” is derived from false or filtered or self-deceptive analysis of such “marginal considerations” (which were, after all, THE STATED REASON FOR THE WAR, remember?).
This has been done extensively on this board as well as in many other areas.
You’re insisting that the overall assessment of the situation is true, despite the lies told to support it. What facts, IYHO, are still there to support your assessment? What real trees remain in the forest you insist you can see?
adaher, are you stating that ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was not, in fact, occurring? Or that the UN sanctions were Clinton’s responsibility, not the UN’s?
The claim that they had “no other possible use” was never made- IIRC it was that the tubes were considered “dual use” and, as such, were prohibited.
I think several of you don’t recall specific incidents leading up to the war-
-Iraqi scientists refusal to meet with weapons inspectors without Saddam’s goons present
-the Iraqi who tried to give weapons inspectors a notebook (which they didn’t accept and led to Hans Blix IMHO disgusting quote that people with info for inspectors could find "more elegant ways’ of getting it to them) and was imprisoned and slated to be executed until US forces invaded Iraq
-Former head of weapons inspections Richard Butler’s (no friend of the Bush administration) claim that Iraq had WMDs and probably destroyed them before the war.
-For those of you hung up on yellowcake and Niger (two words that Bush never used in his speech) and the debunked document, The Guardian reported that Iraqi agents were possibly trying to obtain uranium from the Congo.
The bottom line is that most people agreed that at some point Saddam had WMDs, he was definitely not complying with weapons inspections, and bad things happened to people who did comply. A declassified US intelligence doc on the subect can be found here. To claim that Saddam was going along with inspections or that the US “knew” Iraq was no threat is untrue.
minty green:
Fine, then you and I are in agreement about the line in the OP which indicates that the only possible way to read good faith into Bush’s WMD would be incompetence. That’s the point I’m trying to make. DSeid, in his OP, is just framing the issue so there’s no possible way that Bush could be a good president - either he was intentionally lying, or he was telling the truth as far as he knew but that was due to incompetence. That is the point I’m taking issue with.
DSeid:
No, the others did not claim to be less certain…just less willing to act on that level of certainty.
Chaim Mattis Keller
By the precedent of 1998, the House would impeach him, and the Senate acquit him. It would be my sincere hope that the Congessmen, of either party, would not descend to the partisan chicanery that the Republican leaders of that year felt incumbent on themselves.
While I have nothing but loathing for the “a lie is OK unless it’s under oath” attitude, let me point out that the commitment of this country to a state of hostilities under a knowing lie would be a violation of the President’s oath of office, by any resonable reading of the two things he promises in that oath.
In sum – if it can be shown that he knowingly and willfully lied, he should serve out his term, to avoid reinforcing a disgusting precedent, and then be replaced by all right-thinking citizens, of either party, as a man not fit to hold the high office to which he acceded.
Just one little historical point that changes everything. Clinton attacked Iraq also. Bush renewed Clinton’s WMD claims with greator vigor, not out of thin air.
Iraq, terror, WMDs… I’m glad the left wing knows we’re all safe if we just trust Jacques Chiraq. I wonder if my dogs can vote for Bush?
BTW, I don’t claim to understand the shadowy world of nation-sponsored international jihadist terrorism. That’s just me.
What a fascinating link, Beagle! It takes a rare bit of courage to posit, with an apparently straight face, that Saddam was connected to the OK City bombing.
I think your dogs make a fairly safe bet, given a canine instinct for blind loyalty and an ability to actually eat shit with relish. Humans oftimes resort to using their capacity for reason, and are therefore less reliable Republicans.
Oh, Chiam, c’mon.
Do you forget so quickly? Do just a quick search for what others were saying. France led the charge.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/26/sprj.irq.france/index.html
Text of memorandum submitted by France, Russia, Germany
Monday, February 24, 2003 to the U.N. Security Council
Bush and Blair claimed to know, on the basis of evidence that was too sensitive to share, of course, (“trust me”) and on the basis of evidence that was false.
No Chiam, this was either a lie or incompentance of the administration. Bush’s own Foreign advisory board leans torwards the incompetance spin, no surprise given the only other choice:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/24/white.house.uranium/index.html -
Fact-checkers blamed for Bush’s uranium ‘goof’
From Dana Bash
CNN
Thursday, December 25, 2003
“The President is not a fact-checker” - Condoleeza Rice
Oh really? Allow me to quote the Condoleeza Rice, who claimed that the aluminum tubes “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.”
The motherfuckers lied, dude. Thank goodness their words are recorded for posterity, so that revisionists and apologists can’t merely waive their hands and claim they never uttered their lies.
Allow me to quote the liar-in-chief: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
[Apologist mode on]
See?, he didn´t say neither “yellowcake” nor “Niger”
[Apologist mode off]
I’m alrady outraged. Either way, I expect more, (naively one would presume), from the CinC.
This isn’t easy for me to understand.
I assume you’re asking I would like anindependent inquiry into the pre-war agitprop etc, right? If this is so then I would have to say that I await the chance to welcome such an inquiry.
Losing your faith in humanity only hurts for a while at first. You get used to the amazement sorta.
The best case for a clear cut lie I’ve seen is the “imprecision” of Bush’s report that there was an IAEA report that said Iraq was just sixmontha away from making The Bomb. Oddly enough, there’s no such report. Mr. Fleischer explained thet Mr. Bush’d been imprecise.
Of course there’s also the claim that he can “speak Mexican.”
The decision to undertake such a massive foreign policy venture on the basis of intel that was amply qualified and the decision to engage in this same foreign policy venture that the CIA, among others, warned would actually increase the chances of intl terrorists and other bad actors getting their hands on whatever banned weapons Hussein had, these bad decisions are particular to the current admin.
While the judgements of the likelihood of Iraq’s posession of banned weapons are’nt unique to this admin, the decisions and actions taken, (ostensibly on the basis of these judgements), are, in fact, unique to GWB’s current admin.
Because we wouldn’t be politley put on notice. But if you’ll notice, Oct, IIRC, 2002 Bush tyold us that Iraq had put us on notice.
The section of the NSS you’re discussing defines how the concept of imminent threat has changed. As you yourself noted, Iraq was said to fit well within the new expanded definition of imminent threat.
FWIW, Rumsfeld specifically defended the idea that Iraq presented and “imminent threat” to the US.
To pretend that the admin didn’t sell the threat to the US from Iraq as imminent is to engage in basest of sophistry.
Your premise is fundamentally flawed, because President Bush did not say that they were an imminent threat to the United States. To the contrary, he said in his State of the Union address in January 2003:
FYI, FWIW, Here’s the thread on this debate:
Did the Bush Admin Make the Case that Iraq Presented an Imminent Threat?
And here’s the answer to GWB’s question, "Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? " October 7, 2002 when, in the words of GWB, Saddam Hussein’s actions have put us on notice.
Granted, Hussien’s actions didn’t politely put us on notice, but it’s the thought that counts.
There’s a plenty in that thread showing how the “concept of imminent threat” must be adapted to “the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.”
To pretend that the admin didn’t sell the threat to the US from Iraq as imminent is to engage in basest of sophistry.