Must read WaPo article breaks down Kay Report, makes clear Bush's treason

You did not write one word to diecredit this article or the information there-in, with the possible exception of calling it "desperate". Please address the issue of "lying about the reasons for war" rather than attacking those who are addressing that issue.

Thank you.

 

Oh yay, I want to address this one.

What a leap of logic, to take the premise "'liberals' are against the war in Iraq" and come to the conclusion, "'liberals' are against democratic principles." It's cute, but it doesn't really follow.

Liberals, like most Americans I should think, want to see Democracy in Iraq. Of course they do. To suggest that they don't is ridiculous and frankly juvenile. We all want peace, prosperity, liberalism and democracy in Iraq.

The argument is over the methods used to accomplish this goal -- their cost and their efficacy. I don't speak for all left wingers, but if you cannot demonstrate to me that there is an imminent threat - oh, wait, let's say immediate threat, is that better? - to the U.S., or some very urgent moral reason for us to engage in war, then I will never support putting our troops in danger. The litmus test ought to be the question "would I have my son/daughter/husband/wife/brother/sister die for this cause?" If the answer is "no," then the cost of going to war is too high. That human cost, combined with the financial cost, in my mind made this invasion not worthwhile.

Given that the invasion occurred anyway, I hope for minimal casualties on both sides and the speedy return of the troops. Watching events unfold, I can't help but feel that the administration has made all the wrong moves and planned poorly for the postwar power vacuum and reconstruction of Iraq.

Naturally, given that they went to war when they shouldn't have, and botched the postwar situation so severely, I'm not eager to the administration succeed politically. However, if the cost of peace and freedom in Iraq were four more years of Bush II, I would gladly accept that. Still, I firmly believe that if we continue along this course we will have continued disaster. I hate Bush for getting us into this, for killing hundreds of Americans and for keeping them in continued danger.

I hate him even more for doing so under false pretenses. You cannot equate outrage over the President starting a war for fictitious reasons, with a hatred for democracy. It's a childish attempt at diverting attention from the real question at hand. Did the President lie? To me it's almost a moot point. He sent us to war for no real reason - even if it can't be proved that he lied, he exhibited fatally poor judgement and it's an insult to those who gave their lives to just ignore that.

 

Ahh! So, we're whittling down the straw man now!

So, all of us who aren't part of your 'elite liberal inteligentsia' are just well meaning dupes being told how to feel?

If you read the Seymour Hersh article, you would understand that the Bush administration was using intelligence information stripped of its context. Maybe CIA officials could usefully interprete this 'stovepiped' information, but Congress certainly couldn't.

Again, the CIA was not allowed to do its job with Iraq related intelligence. If they had, there wouldn't have been any 'immediate, credible threat' with which to sell the war.

The question isn't whether the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power; it's whether the long term costs of doing so in this particular way are preferable to not removing him. This is another issue I have with this Bush administration. Cheney and Rumsfeld created their new, parallel intelligence networks in part because they were tired of the CIA and other traditional sources placing heavy emphasis on worst case scenarios. They wanted best case scenarios, so when it came to decide whether to invade Iraq, they ignored information that suggested things would turn out approximately as they have. US Soldiers were not generally welcomed as liberators, Chalabi and his designated successor government turned out to be neither useful nor respected within Iraq, and citizens who've lived under a viscious totalitarian government for 30 years behaved the way such people tend to.

The taking of intelligence out of context and the emasculation of the CIA are coming from the Whitehouse, not those of us hoping it gets a new resident on January 20, 2005.

 

It makes our president look bad because of "the mistake in the pre-war interpretation of intelligence". This is correct, ASF.

But I have to ask, is it the writers fault for pointing out the mistake? Or the President's fault for making the mistake?

 

Liberals using the media to turn the anger of well-meaning people against our president is no different than the Republican strategy of invoking 9-11 patriotism at every turn in an effort to connect the emotions of that day to the present quagmire in Iraq, hoping somehow to squeeze the proverbial last drop out of it. It's a propaganda war for both sides.

For me, and I think for most, we just want to know the truth, so we can vote our conscience and choose the best man for the job based on all the evidence set before us. The job of most political campaigns is to do their best to cover all of that up.

 

If you loved America, you'd be against George Bush.

We could all buy Dubya action figures tomorrow - won't make Iraq safer, and it won't make the economy any better.

I mean, I didn't want to be THIS freaking right about Bush.

If you've got a blacklist, I want to be on it.

I think most Republicans love their country, but they love parroting back Bush/FNC talking points even more. It's not even a partisan issue anymore - Bush makes Jimmy Carter look like Lincoln, King Arthur, and Jesus put together. Wake up and stop smelling the OxyContin.

"Bush never said 'imminent'!" - yeesh

 

So your oppositon to the war, isn't based on pacifist beliefs? Do you just believe Iraq and the region in general, was better with Saddam in power than it will be with him removed?

I think I basically admitted this. 9/11 was the impedous for Bush to change his mind about the fact that continuing to ignore the situation in the middle east did not represent a threat. 9/11 convinced Bush, and many other americans that business as usuual in the Middle east was not acceptable.

But Saddam brought this upon himself when he invaded Kuwait, which the civilized world clearly thinks is deserving of a response.

I think the administration was clear that the threat was more potential than immediate. And the president himself made it clear in his speach to the U.N. that it was also about the principal that Sadam had continually violated the resolutions that were the result of the Gulf war, and we could not allow him to get away with that.

no, it means I want to stress the potential long term results, which you keep trying to ignore.

Why doesn't it merit a response?

It is generally accepted that it was a mistake not to confront Hitler before he became a real threat.

I don't think it is wise policy to wait until things get to the point of imminent threat to do something about it.

Yeah, I really believe that that was what you were trying to do.

I'm sorry that you feel mean my incistence that people be accurate is misdirection.

Once again you ignore the long term. I honestly believe that Saddam Hussein was a barrier to creating a situation in the middle east that would help end terorrism. His continuing existence in power and flowting of the U.N. resolutions, was a testiment to the lie that the radicals wanted to spread that the U.S. was a paper tiger who was affraid of them and that would be cowed by terrorist acts.

OK, but like I said, I'm just not going to get as excited over this as you are. And I'm sure if the shoe was on the other foot, and this was a democratic administration the majority of the people who are Bush's critics now, would be defending a Democrtaic administration that had done the exact same thing.

Let me ask you this.

If things do work out in Iraq, and the country becomes a beacon of peace and democracy in the region, would you think it was worth it?

I do not think enough time has passed to draw that type of conclusion. If by election time thigs have not improved significantly in Iraq, I would not blame people for voting against Bush based on his incompetence. But I certainly would not support anyone who supports abandoning Iraq, no mater what the consequences.

When did I suggest that. I don't even believe a wise leader would have one plan. He would have many contingency plans. I think some things have worked out much worse than expected, and some have worked out as expected, and some have worked out better than expected.

I think we mostly underestimated how much Saddam had broken the spirit of the average Iraqi. We thought Iraqi's would be more energetic in taking back their country than they have been, and that has made things go much slower than some anticipated.

I am not sure what reports you are speaking of.

What is your evidence of that? Is it logical to you that the real shiite leaders who have gained the most from the removal of Saddam would be Anti-U.S.?

To me this is an example of how reporting distorts things. I just read an article by a reporter who was in Iraq, and he said by and large the general population supports the senior cleric's who support the U.S. That doesn't make for good headlines, so what we see in the news are these violent acts of radical young clerics. The radicals see an opportunity, and that is why it is important that the U.S. stay in Iraq and help the moderates maintain control. The lessons we learn from the battle between the moderates and radicals in Iraq will be invaluable as a similar situation plays out in Iran.

 

You really love to pose these two options as the only two possibilities - either we invade immediately or Saddam stays in power indefinitely. This is an incorrect dichotomy - there were myriad other options. Still you continue harp on the idea that Iraq is better off without Saddam, revealing that you have either not read or not understood what people have been posting on these boards for months.

Look at you, engaging in the same deliberate conflation, distraction and obfuscation as the administration. Do you realize you're doing it, or do you genuinely buy this garbage? The most you can say is that 9/11 made us more vigilant about threats to our security. Saddam did not attack us on that day. Al Qaeda's willingness and ability to perpetrate that atrocity had nothing to do with whether Saddam Hussein's regime posed a threat to the United States. On 9/11 we learned that Bin Laden was a serious motherfucker who had to be dealt with immeidately. That's what we learned. We didn't learn squat about Saddam Hussein.

The President said they had WMD. Nobody sat around their dinner tables back in February asking each other, "do you think Saddam's repeated violations of the UN resolutions justifies war?" No, they were asking "Does he really have WMD?" Bush said he had WMD. He did not. End of story.

Do you really think this is a good analogy? Do you honestly believe that, if we had not invaded Iraq, the consequences would have been comparable to what happened to Europe in the 30's and 40's, or what would have happened if the U.S. had never entered WWII?

When and how do you know that the threat has the potential to become imminent? How close to imminent does it need to be to justify war?

Okay, let's drop that wording. Let's abandon the term "imminent threat." Did the President say that Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat? An urgent situation? A clear, distinct threat? Or was it a distant, potential or future threat? Find me a quotation from Bush or anyone in his administration in which they even imply that the threat is eventual, potential, or distant.

Not if my dad gets killed there. I appreciate the long-term benefits of democracy in Iraq, but I would not sacrifice a family member in an attempt to impose it. Hey, Michael, if you think it's such a worthwhile cause, why don't you enlist?

So our failure to accomplish our aims there is still Saddam's fault. You know, I'd call all those car bombings pretty energetic. Guess we have a different definition of the term.

 

Perhaps someone with more of a background in Middle East Studies will come along to confirm my suspicion that that's as false and dangerously misleading as it sounds.

Or maybe I'm wrong, and it is true - you conquer one raghead country, you've conquered 'em all.

 

Actually, it's not a majority anymore.

 

Uhhhh, what the fuk is Zogby? How about trying this:

Gallup Poll and CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"

Approve Disapprove Don'tKnow
N 10/24-26/03 53 42 5
10/10-12/03 56 40 4
10/6-8/03 55 42 3
9/19-21/03 50 47 3
9/8-10/03 52 43 5
8/25-26/03 59 37 4

Further proof of a liberal finding some info that fits his slant, regardless of the truth!

 

No not all. We have to do it one at a time. I'm amaized that American liberals defend the rights of thug dictatorships, some of them left over from Colonial times.

It is clear that the Iranian government does not have the concent of the governed. Shouldn't we stand up for democracy??

 

Originally posted by Attacking Minded
No not all. We have to do it one at a time.

That's right, because we've got a sacred mandate to be the world's police patrol, righting wrongs and bringing justice. Starting and ending with the countries holding all the crude oil underneath them, of course.

I'm amaized that American liberals defend the rights of thug dictatorships, some of them left over from Colonial times.



Who am I? And why was I overthrown by a neocolonialist-sponsored thug dictatorship?

Why don't you try reading this to find out?


It is clear that the Iranian government does not have the concent of the governed.

Which part of the government? Who the hell elected Khatami? Nothing would get the young, pro-western Iranian population back behind the mullahs like, oh, calling them an evil nation and rattling our sabers at them. Good thing we haven't done that yet, then.


Shouldn't we stand up for democracy??

We can't even do that in this country anymore.

 

too bad you don't "feel the need" to apply this insistence to the president

really now? and what makes you so sure? your keen unbiased political sense? precedent?

what are you referring to? the war? or the lying?

yet someone who abandoned afghanistan is fine and dandy

and i'm amazed that american conservatives conveniently gloss over the fact that we propped many of them right on up... including the one in question here

i'm also amazed that republicons keep singing that 'liberal media' song ad nauseum - didn't foxnewsnetwork and a few other administration sack licking news networks switch the title of their war coverage midstream to the unbelievably misleading 'operation iraqi freedom' put forth by the president? - and by unbelievably misleading i mean outright lie

 

We do? Well isn’t that just great. Here I was having some doubts.

Who are you? I guess you are Michael. Who is the guy in the picture? That is a guy who bore much of the brunt of a love-hate relationship with the US and suffered a coup attempt led by the CIA, which now is apparently persecuted by the Bush administration. Oddly enough the CIA was, at the time, overrun by Harvard liberals recruited by leftovers from the Oh So Social OSS.

 

Boy, I was really worried at first when I read this, but I've thought about it for a second and I feel much *head explodes*

 

Gallup Poll
Approve 53%

Newsweek
Approve 51%

Ipsos-Reid/Cook Political Report Poll
Approve 55%

CBS News Poll
Approve 54%

Fox News
Approve 52%

ABC News Poll
Approve 53%

These are all more recent polls than the Zogby one taken two weeks ago.

 

Academia/CIA

Gloria Steinem and the CIA

 

I'm not going to indulge the stupidity of this topic. It has nothing to do with the Kay Report, nothing to do with Bush lying, nothing to with Iraq's non-existent WMD.

The CIA as part of the vast left-wing conspiracy? The Central *#*#*#*#ing Intelligence Agency?

What is it with you conservatives this month? We won Vietnam. We found WMD. Things are going well in Iraq. The economy's getting better. Is this one, big, nationwide troll? Shun the Way of the Clueless *#*#*#*#, already.