Nobody to match Bush

Dubya will never get reelected, you can fool some of the people some of the time... but not twice! The moron f*cked up EVERYTHING. As for Rudy G., he is the luckiest and most opportunistic politician of the US, 9/11 saved his career and he hijacked the rescue efforts to promote his own person. So lame. I can't believe he became TIME man of the year and a hero. From what I read he's a a*hole, first off he cheated his wife and he has an ego as big as New York. That shows that History doesn't know about fairness.
 
Quote from KymarFye:



Off the top of my head, with the opening bell approaching:

1. If there were no WMD munitions available to Iraqi forces at any given time, but there remained WMD capacities (the expertise, equipment, whatever chemical or biological precursor agents, etc.) , then Iraq could have fairly quickly re-constituted its WMD program and arsenal at a time of its choosing - when the heat was off. This seems very much in fact to have been the Iraqi intention.

2. As was previewed in Kuwait ca. 1990-1, even leaving WMDs behind, Iraq's geographical position and economic potential makes control of the country by a hostile, aggressive regime a source of immediate danger to world oil reserves and therefore the world economy, as well as to individual US allies.

3. By providing logistical and financial support, or even through use of its own operatives, Iraq could maintain a terrorist threat. For some reason it is frequently forgotten that Ramsi Yusef, organizer of the first WTC attack, was traveling on an Iraqi passport at the time. As we have seen numerous times, on 9/11 in particular, terrorists do not necessarily need nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons in order to inflict mass destruction.
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I think OPT brought into conversation pre-emptive, which is what I was hinting towards. Your previous statement was that Iraq was a danger, your above reasons claim Iraq as a potential danger, with the possible exception of (3). It's a fine line and maybe not too important, but from a moral perspective - an issue pressed by the current administration - it makes a difference. And, for the record, I had not known about Yusef's Iraqi passport. In any case, I agree that something needed to be done, remove Saddam, secure the region, alleviate the suffering of many freedom loving Iraqi citizens, protect our nation, to name a few. The war may have been the best approach and I hope it was; it is, nonetheless, a terrible thing to be aware of such suffering.
 
Quote from rlb21079:



I think OPT brought into conversation pre-emptive, which is what I was hinting towards. Your previous statement was that Iraq was a danger, your above reasons claim Iraq as a potential danger, with the possible exception of (3). It's a fine line and maybe not too important, but from a moral perspective - an issue pressed by the current administration - it makes a difference. And, for the record, I had not known about Yusef's Iraqi passport. In any case, I agree that something needed to be done, remove Saddam, secure the region, alleviate the suffering of many freedom loving Iraqi citizens, protect our nation, to name a few. The war may have been the best approach and I hope it was; it is, nonetheless, a terrible thing to be aware of such suffering.
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My point all along has been that the argument for war was made on the basis of actual threat, not potential threat of WMD.

The administration worked at convincing the American people that the threat was real and immediate enough that the ONLY choice was war, and war right now.

If in fact, they lied to convince the American people it was right to to go to war on the basis of suggested actual threats that as of yet don't exist, that is my main problem with what happened.

None of us, none of us, know if the war was right or not in the long run. That will be determined years, if not decades from now. Justification is a waste of time, and only necessary when the facts are not so clear as to be overwhelming any doubt. There was never a need to justify the war with Japan or Germany.

Policy is never known to be good or bad at the time, but in hindsight.

However, honest is always good policy, and lying is bad policy.

Why should we be concerned if Bush lied?

Well, the argument against Clinton's lies was that if he is a liar, one who tells lies, how can we trust him?

How can we trust Bush and company if it is found out that they are liars?

How do we know they aren't lying in other areas too.

The power of the presidency is in the ability to generate trust, and once someone is a proven liar, it is difficult to regain that trust.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

As you demonstrated at length, the President never premised regime change solely or even principally on the existence of WMD and certainly not on the throw away line about the British intelligence report that Saddam was trying to buy uranium.

But in time-honored Clinton fashion, objective facts are not that important in this game. Repeat a smear enough times and people begin to believe it.
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Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

--Dick Cheney
Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002


Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

--George W. Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
9/12/2002


Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have

--George W. Bush
Radio Address
10/5/2002


The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.

--George W. Bush
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002


Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists,... The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction.

--Dick Cheney
Vice President
Denver, Address To Air National Guard
12/1/2002


We know for a fact that there are weapons there.

--Ari Fleischer
Press Secretary
Press Briefing
1/9/2003


Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.

--George W. Bush
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003


We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.

--Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to UN Security Council
2/5/2003


In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it.

--George W. Bush
Speech to the American Enterprise Institute
2/26/2003


If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us . . .

--Colin Powell
Secretary of State
Interview with Radio France International
2/28/2003


And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.

--Dick Cheney
Vice President
Meet The Press
3/16/2003


Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

--George W. Bush
Address to the Nation
3/17/2003


Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . .

--Ari Fleischer
Press Secretary
Press Briefing
3/21/2003


There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.

--General Tommy Franks
Commander in Chief Central Command
Press Conference
3/22/2003


One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.

--Victoria Clark
Pentagon Spokeswoman
Press Briefing
3/22/2003


I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.

--Kenneth Adelman
Defense Policy Board member
--Washington Post, p. A27
3/23/2003


We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

--Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
ABC Interview
3/30/2003


Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty.

--Robert Kagan
Neocon scholar
Washington Post op-ed
4/9/2003


I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found.

--Ari Fleischer
Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003


But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.

--Ari Fleischer
Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003


We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.

--Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
Fox News Interview
5/4/2003


For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.

--Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Secretary of Defense
Vanity Fair interview
5/28/2003


No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored

--Condoleeza Rice
US National Security Advisor
Meet the Press
6/8/2003
 
Madison,

And all those excerpts prove what? Everyone knows there was legitimate concern about WMD, that was the whole point of the UN inspections. As the Busch column posted by KF above laid out, there have been numerous finds of WMD-related items and production facilities, yet the Bush bashers simply ignore those inconvenient facts as though they didn't exist.

The main point that is ignored is that regime change was never based solely on WMD. It was based on 12 years of willful violations, coupled with the man's history and our own vulnerability.

The uranium story cannot be called a lie. He said there is a British report that Saddam tried to buy uranium. That was accurate. Now they say it didn't pan out. That ahppens a lot in intelligence matters.

Did the White House emphasize the facts that supported its desired course of action? Of course, that is called leadership and the American people are grateful we finally have some in security and national defense.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:


Did the White House emphasize the facts that supported its desired course of action? Of course, that is called leadership and the American people are grateful we finally have some in security and national defense.
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if you and the "american people" feel grateful for the leadership, that's what's important.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Madison,

And all those excerpts prove what? Everyone knows there was legitimate concern about WMD, that was the whole point of the UN inspections. As the Busch column posted by KF above laid out, there have been numerous finds of WMD-related items and production facilities, yet the Bush bashers simply ignore those inconvenient facts as though they didn't exist.

The main point that is ignored is that regime change was never based solely on WMD. It was based on 12 years of willful violations, coupled with the man's history and our own vulnerability.

The uranium story cannot be called a lie. He said there is a British report that Saddam tried to buy uranium. That was accurate. Now they say it didn't pan out. That ahppens a lot in intelligence matters.

Did the White House emphasize the facts that supported its desired course of action? Of course, that is called leadership and the American people are grateful we finally have some in security and national defense.
More...

I don't think those who question Bush's honesty question the facts. I think they question whether or not the facts supported a pre-emptive war, and whether or not Bush lied to the American people to support his own personal agenda, and whether or not he abused his power as President in the process.

What he did could be considered good leadership, and it could also be poor leadership if it is leading us into disaster in the long run.

You all but come out and admit Bush lied to the people. The circumstancial evidence concerning the time line of the statements made prior to the war, and the facts at hand after the war are incriminating Bush to be guilty of having pulled a fast one on the people of America.

Does this mean that we allow our leaders to lie to us, just because they were elected as leaders? Is it okay just because you happen to agree with their actions, or justify what they did as and end that was justifiable no matter what the means?

Is a quality of leadership supposed to be lying to people?
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

KymarFye,

Excellent editorial by Andrew Busch. Where was that published?

It should be clear that the President is under a full scale media/Dem smear attack. Their goal is nothing less than to undermine and destroy the legitimacy of our Commander in Chief while we are at war, all for short term political expediency.

Viewed objectively and in the very best light for them, their argument that the President "lied" is as believable as Hillary Clinton's account of her cattle futures trades. As you demonstrated at length, the President never premised regime change solely or even principally on the existence of WMD and certainly not on the throw away line about the British intelligence report that Saddam was trying to buy uranium.

But in time-honored Clinton fashion, objective facts are not that important in this game. Repeat a smear enough times and people begin to believe it. Of course, it helps immensely if the national media are in on the game. You can almost hear Dan Rather,' Hey we can make this another Watergate."

To read the NY Times or watch the networks, one would believe we had invaded Holland rather than one of the most horrifying dictators and mass murderers in history. How important is one possibly incorrect intelligence report balanced against Saddam's 25 year obsession with obtaining nuclear weapons? Even the soft-on-terrorism appeasers in the Clinton administration felt Saddam's WMD programs warranted destruction in 1998. Now they actually claim that the half dozen "monica's" they fired at Iraq eliminated the threat.

The American people need to cut through all this media propaganda and ask themselves one simple question: Do you feel safer now or with Saddam in power?
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Sorry for forgetting the link.

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/busch/03/iraq.html

I have a feeling you'll like the "No Left Turns" blog in general...

If one wishes to discuss nuances, then we can discuss nuances: There is no evidence that Bush "lied": His statement in the SOTU address was, for instance, factually and technically correct. He said, paraphrasing, "British intelligence reports that Iraq is seeking uranium from Niger..." Typically, when CNN or someone else wants to make a point against him, they edit out the "British intelligence reports" part, to make it seem as though Bush was making the categorical assertion. In addition, both the Administration and the British government stand by the claim that Iraq appeared, according to intelligence, to have been searching in Africa for a source of nuclear materials.

It's a somewhat similar situation with the truly ridiculous and intellectually dishonest use of a Cheney misstatement from a Meet The Press interview, when, after repeatedly stating (all day, on that show and others) that there was evidence Saddam was trying to reconstitute his nukes program, near the end of a repetitive statement he left off the word "program." It shouldn't be necessary to point out that if Cheney intended to say that Saddam actually had nukes, or was about to get them, it would have been the subject of front page headlines all over the world.

The vast majority of all Administration statements - certainly in all major policy addresses such as the SOTU or Powell's presentation, and leaving aside misstatements and off-the-cuff remarks - were couched in exactly the "intelligence indicates" or "we believe" framework that Bush used for the Niger statement. Even for the isolated statements that are categorical, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the speakers, including of course Bush himself, did not believe them to be true.

If one believes one's statements to be true, one is not lying.

It doesn't matter how many times the Administration repeats the full range of its arguments for the war, opponents will continue to claim that the "only" argument or even the "main" argument was "imminent" or "urgent" danger of a WMD attack. What was urgent, in the view of the Administration, was the need to pre-empt even the possibility of such an attack. "We will not remain passive while dangers gather," and so on... Once the threat of such an attack was urgent in the sense of being about to occur, or able to occur at any moment, then the policy would have failed. I believe the Administration was worried that the policy had already failed in that sense, but decided that it had to accept the risk for the sake of the advantages of a more patient approach. If the Administration really believed that an actual attack was imminent, they wouldn't have wasted time with the Congress, the UN, Turkey, and the rest: They would have intervened directly with whatever tools were at their disposal.

It's a difficult concept for some people to process, especially if they have little grasp of military strategy, tactics, and logistics, and all the more if it doesn't happen to suit their political agenda or their efforts to make their pre-war opposition and their during-the-war embarrassments look better.

Of course, neither the Administration nor the American public seems particularly interested in discussing nuances, least of all with opponents who have shown a penchant for dishonest and manipulative rhetorical tactics - they've got wars to fight and lives to lead. The Administration is in a difficult position for another reason, however: The war on terror - which is much more than a fight with individual terrorists - appears to be going fairly well, with two main objectives and numerous smaller ones achieved, and with no follow-on to 9/11 having occurred on American soil, but now involves long-term, expensive commitments required to prevent victory from turning into defeat. Meanwhile, events in Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and throughout the region are still developing along uncertain courses. With no new major combat operations likely to come anytime soon, it hardly suits the Administration's policy objectives, at home or abroad, to work intensively to remind the public of how much danger we're still in. It opens them to the charge of fear-mongering, it encourages desperate measures on the part of enemies, it complicates efforts to gain cooperation from allies and neutrals, and it wouldn't do much for consumer and business confidence. For the present, it suits almost everyone to let people believe that we're "safer" - and we probably are. That's not the real issue, though, in my opinion. It's not whether we're safer now, much less feel that way, but whether we've created a situation that helps remove much more serious threats, more serious even than 9/11, over the longer term.

So, with elections approaching, a desperate opposition struggles to create issues, and, as ever, those seeking investigations ask, "If you don't have anything to hide, why are you resisting?" They never seem to feel that way if they're the ones who are being investigated - whether as public officials on national TV or as private individuals dealing with the police - but there's nothing the party out of power likes more than having the public's attention focused on Congressional investigations of real or manufactured scandals. It gives one Congressional buffoon after another a chance to bloviate on national TV, and to repeat whatever sound-bites he or she thinks will appeal to the constituency back home. The media love such stories as well. Right now, the public in general doesn't seem to care enough to generate the necessary groundswell. Sooner or later, the Administration will produce a white paper or other comprehensive statement on WMDs, terrorism, and the post-war situation. They'll do it when they're ready, and when they feel its in their and the country's interests (politicians don't usually make a distinction - ask Bill), and not a moment sooner. If, in the meantime, Bush slips a few points in the opinion polls and if Bianca Jagger has a cow, so what? They've got bigger fish to fry, and, anyway, who's going to care on election day 2004 what Bush's poll ratings were in the Summer of 2003?
 
The bottom line to all these arguments is how do we respond to 9/11. The liberals want appeasement and the conservatives want to attack the source and contributors to these past and potential future strikes and make it harder to launch new attacks when the attackers are themselves under attack.

In an ideal situation we could go our separate ways and let the cards fall where they may. Walter Williams wrote a column several months ago suggesting the the gulf between the liberals and conservatives was so wide that we should probably look at peacefully dividing the country along the lines of ideology. This is almost unthinkable but after reading these discussions it is getting much less so.

If the liberals want to take another chance on another 9/11 through appeasement or whatever the liberal solution at the time is then they should be allowed to do so but only on their own soil not on soil dear to the conservatives. The reverse situation should also be true.

Those of us out in Bush country didn't take the direct hit, except the DOD, and yet we seem to be taking the stronger stand, and beign blamed for it, while the liberal state is crying about the strong stand and seemingly wanting to go back the the appeasement policy.

Many in Bush country are starting to feel that if that is the way they want to go maybe we should let them but leave us out of the equation. I don't know which side the terrorists would rather attack but it might be interesting to find out. In other words if the terrorists attack a liberal target there will be no military consequences but if they attack a conservative target they had better prepare to defend themselves.
 
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