Bushit
Best of Kevin...( well, a sample anyway )
Asking questions of your government and thinking for yourself is unpatriotic.
Does that mean he thinks the majority of Americans are unpatriotic now?
' The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason...'
Wolfowitz quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of an interview with Vanity Fair.
If you look at the President's speech on the eve of the Iraq war on the WH web site, you will find that WMDs are mentions alomost ten times more than 'freedom' (1 time) and 'liberty' (1 time).
So to paraphrase the President, it is revisionism to suggest that Iraq war was for anything other than WMDs.
It's also worth noting that The Washington Post today has a front page article trumpeting National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley's screeching attack on "Democrats" who are want to investigate whether the Bush administration distorted, manipulated or lied about pre-war intelligence that purported to show that Iraq had WMD.
Hadley's attack is essentially a verbatim recitation of the same scripted, programmed Republican talking points that the Bush bootlicker Republican shills have been slavishly regurgitating in their recent comments on this site.
Hadley has been directly implicated in foisting upon the American people the Italian forged documents that purported to show that Iraq had purchased uranium "yellowcake" ore from Niger.
So it is particularly despicable that a person who was directly, and knowingly, responsible for specific and important lies about Iraq's nonexistent "nuclear weapons programs" is stepping forward as the White House mouthpiece to attack people who want to hold him, and others in the Bush Administration, accountable for their lies.
Well then, there should be no question. If Glenn Reynolds says Democrats are acting unpatriotically, that's good enough intel for the White House.
Posted by: zed
Since he misused the term "patriot" once again, let me say something that has bothered me for a long time: The Patriot Act is actually in place to help Republicans police dissent and curb the liberties of their political oponents and has almost nothing to do with curbing terrorism. They use a word that is antithetical to their intent, try to intimidate their opposition into silence, and, if unsuccessful make veiled refernce to unseen gulags and unceasing darkness. Republicans "leaders" of today are the heinous and dangerous group of tyrants loosed upon America--that one of their shills would impugn the legacy of real patriots in the name of sacrificing more patriots so he can cash a check is beyond the pale. If I ever hear a winger misuse the sacred term patriot again in my presence, there will be a fight. This Instapundit disgusts me and is an insult to every GI and American. If one is incapable of deeper thought on the meaning and responsibilities of freedom than that--damn him to hell and may Pat Robertson's tyrannical God strike him down. . .
Let's take this nation back by adhering to its constitution. Secret gulags for God's sake. What an embarrassment. What crimes in our name.
Reynolds lays out his case that WMDs weren't what the war was about.
Ari Fleischer refutes him thusly:
"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."
Press Briefing, 4/10/2003.
The Patriot Act is actually in place to help Republicans police dissent and curb the liberties of their political oponents and has almost nothing to do with curbing terrorism. Posted by: Sparko
Enough shame to spread around there. You've got to remember that most of the Democrats in Congress voted for it, many admitting that they hadn't even read it before voting.
Posted by: Jeff II on November 11, 2005 at 2:24 PM | PERMALINK
"In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first."
--Ambrose Bierce
So the notion that 'the inspectors found nothing, therefore there was nothing to find' is not correct. What we know is that Saddam interfered. And given his history, his non-compliance with previous UN resolutions, etc., etc., it was the final reason to go to war -- we understood that Saddam could never be trusted. And that is certainly true.
You know, if you replace the word "Saddam" with "Bush" in the above it almost makes sense.
Here's the problem for Bush and the Republicans.
They now want to say that the Dems were every bit as much enthusiastic supporters of the Iraq war as they were.
Thing is, Bush and the Republicans made their case for their own election campaigns by a loud and emphatic declaration that only THEY were the true supporters of the "war on terrorism" in Iraq. And people believed them, and voted for them.
Now that the Iraq war has turned into a fiasco and a tragedy, they have to pretend that none of this ever happened. The American people, though, who can think only very simple thoughts, do recall very well the basics here, and which party was lined up for what.
So Bush's protest that even the Dems advocated the same course in Iraq is doomed to utter and ignominious failure.
Posted by: frankly0
To put my previous post another way, the problem for the Republicans is that they have based their entire electoral appeal on DIFFERENTIATING themselves from the Democrats in terms of their aggressiveness in the Iraq war. That differentiation worked great for them in 2004.
But now the American people are seeing the enormity of the downside to such aggressiveness. The Republicans can try as hard as they want to blur the differentiation they've been pressing for years and decades, but it is certain to fail. It's just so much cognitive dissonance for the American voter, which means that it hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of being heard.
It's frankly eerie to me that just by following the news closely prior to the war it was clear to me that we would never find any WMD's, a prediction I made to anyone who would listen.
Now I find out from Bush supporters that all the evidence I was following was either false or meant the exact opposite of what it purported to mean.
That leaves me with the nagging question...how could I have known? How could I have known?!?!? Could it be that I'm....psychic????
Move over Sylvia Browne, Montel's got a new fly girl and his name is "trex!"
"I see someone standing over your shoulder...yes, it's the ghost of pre-war intelligence. It wants to make peace with you. It says if you search inside the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations you'll find the evidence you need to bring it into to light. It wants to go to the light...."
Posted by: trex on November 11, 2005 at 2:35 PM | PERMALINK
Jeebus, has everyone had their fucking memory wiped?
Muy favorite part about Bush's statements today were when he accused Democrats of trying to rewrite history.
Projection: conservative punditry's eternal wellspring. :)
Posted by: DH Walker
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 17, 2003
President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours
Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation
The Cross Hall
number of times ______ is used:
justice: 0
freedom: 1
liberty: 3
weapons: 8
Bush's attempt to identify the Dems with him on the Iraq war may be many things, but the one thing that it is most obviously is DESPERATE. When your only recourse is to argue that your opponents are the same as you, really they are, you have already lost the game.
Posted by: frankly0
the marketeer: This is, once again, an example of mistakenly believing that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
except for this...
"We know for a fact there are weapons there."
-- Ari Fleischer, Jan. 9, 2003
"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." -- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003
if you say you --know-- where they are....then none are found.....
aren't you incompetent at least...and a liar at worst.
( On the death and dying of the Bush terror regime )
1. Denial. Check.
2. Anger. Check.
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
Posted by: has407
Would it be considered bad form to recite this little fact to Mr. Reynolds? In November 1944, during the heart of a war with Adolf Hitler and the Japanese Empire, with our very civilization at stake, and with millions of American troops in harm's way, that 22 million mostly conservative Americans attempted to remove the President of the United States from power?
It's called democracy, Mr. Reynolds. You unforgivably stupid twit.
Posted by: fourmorewars
"This is, once again, an example of mistakenly believing that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence."
Clearly, we should invade Indiana, because it can't prove it DOESN'T have WMD, either.
Posted by: Smurfyhoser
Last I checked, Indiana hadn't gassed its own people (excluding Gary, IN) or actually had nuclear, chemical, and bio research in WMDs. So your argument is not logical.
Yes, but can they prove it? Remember, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
You may also want to ask the Indians from whom that state takes its name if Indiana ever engaged in genocide....
And, of course, America has used WMD in the past and has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, so should the rest of the world invade us? If that's a sufficient criteria why are we off the hook?
Posted by: Stefan
Starting with WWI, we abndoned our long-standing policy of avoiding foreign wars.
Right. Except for the Quasi War, the Barbary Wars, the Spanish-American War, the Phillipine-American War, and the Boxer Rebellion. We should probably also include all of our "military interventions" executed to further the Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt's Big Stick Diplomacy, or Wilson's Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America. And our military involvement in the Mexican Civil War.
Posted by: Andrew Wyatt
Which history does he think is being re-written?
The one where the war is about WMD?
The one where it's about links to terrorists?
The one where it's about creating democracy?
Posted by: sc on November 11, 2005 at 3:24 PM | PERMALINK
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
---Dick Cheney August 26, 2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
---George W. Bush September 12, 2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
---Ari Fleischer December 2, 2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
---Ari Fleischer January 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 January 28, 2003
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
---Colin Powell February 5, 2003
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 Bush February 8, 2003
So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
---Colin Powell March 8, 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 Bush March 18, 2003
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
---Ari Fleisher March 21, 2003
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
---Gen. Tommy Franks March 22, 2003
I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
---Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board , March 23, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
---Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark March 22, 2003
We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.
---Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003
Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty.
---Neocon scholar Robert Kagan April 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 April 10, 2003
We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.
---George Bush April 24, 2003
Posted by: Robert
Um, China's human rights record is far worse than Iraq's. Furthermore, China is still Red. So why not invade China?
Yes, horrible crimes were committed in Iraq. And horrible crimes are being committed all over the world at this very second. So why doesn't the U.S. invade everyone?
The Iraq human rights violations argument is a smokescreen. Jeffery
Now we are finally finding out just how badly the [b]ush administration's defenders have been lying when they say Democrats looked at the same intelligence as the White House - this is flat out false as proven by a January 2003 CIA report casting doubt on that intelligence, a report that was only recently given to Democrats on the Intelligence Committee.
"Are you now or have you ever been an unpatriotic member of liberals who thought that when Bush lied, people died?"
Posted by: The Dad
35%? Why do Americans hate America?
I am not versed in law, but it appears to me, a layman, that GWB and his cohorts are so forcefully trying to deny that they lied about the reasons for attacking Iraq becuase they may sense some threat of criminal prosecution if the statements of the critics do prevail.
Posted by: deadender
Why is it that conservatives blame Katrina victims for having no personal responsibility and waiting for Washington for help, but not the Iraqis for not instituting a rebellion against Saddam and instead waiting for Washington to help?
But if I'm wrong, of course, please produce the vast stockpiles of nuclear, chemical or bioligical weapons they or we found.
C'mon, you know where they are: They're buried in huge underground bunkers in the Bekaa Valley. I know this is true because I heard some retired general on Fox say so.
It's obvious what we should do now. Invade Syria, kill all their people, and convert them to Christianity.
It's what Instapundit would do.
Posted by: Basharov
Colin Powell's pathetic presentation to the UN in February of 2003 epitomizes the concerted effort undertaken by the BushCabal to mislead America and the world at large in favor of an invasion of Iraq. And this dog-and-pony show was undertaken as the UN inspectors were finding no WMDs, as Saddam was destroying ballistic missles identified as violating UN limitations, and as millions world wide were marching for peace.
I will never forgive Powell for placing his manhood in a blind trust held by Cheney and using his last shreds of credibility to pimp for an unnecessary and unjust war. For the former Joint Chief of Staff to argue that 81 mm rocket artillery casings were "centrifuge" bits, and to argue that obsolete British hydrogen generator trucks were "mobile biological weapons laboratories" was an insult to his military career. He had to have known what bullshit he was putting out.
Even if the BushCabal sincerely believed that Saddam had a fleet of nuclear missles hidden in the desert, it is indisputable that he did not and reasonable experts were saying so at the time. Bush wanted war, used any and every excuse, no matter how tenuous, to justify war, and stopped at nothing to get it. The result is bilions squandered and thousands dead.
Posted by: petronius
And remember, that Colin Powell rejected the majority of what the White House wanted him to say, so as bad as Powell's presentation was, the most egregious of the lies the Bush administration wanted him to tell didn't even make it into the presentation.
Posted by: SecularAnimist
Damn. Based on the latest polls, 55-60% of the American people think Bush lied about WMD in Iraq. Hard to see how the country can survive with so many traitors running around loose.
Posted by: Billmon
The big thing Bush and Instahack and the Republicans don't get is that the "you're not a real patriot" line has its place and time, and it's not now or here.
For four long years, they've been pissing with the wind with this insult onto the Democrats, but now they're pissing into wind.
McCarthy's questioning of people's patriotism was political catnip until a famous day on TV, and then it became political toxin. The more McCarthy ramped up the invective and lunacy, the worse he fared in the public eye.
You're in the high thirties in approval Georgie Boy -- think you can find your way down to the twenties?
Posted by: frankly0
The problem with this debate is its ever-shifting sands of justification. If you assert that no WMD's were found then you're told the war was really about liberation. If you say Congress didn't authorize an invasion based on liberation you're told we couldn't know for sure that Saddam didn't have WMD's. When you cite the lack of pre-war evidence for WMD's you're told that every country in the world believed it, including Clintonia and Democratistan. When you cite evidence to disprove this you're told the war was about liberation again and that WMD's were actually found but the liberal media won't report it.
In the end you're just called a traitor for questioning what is apparently so patently obvious it's hard to explain.
Posted by: trex
They seem to get their notions of what's plausible from watching James Bond movies.
That's why I never believed that whole story about Saddam's giant laser in his hollowed-out volcano island fortress.
Posted by: Stefan
I hear Cheney was at Arlington today, presumably to feast on the blood of real veterans.
I hope he took the time to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Chickenhawk....
Posted by: Stefan
Bush said today: "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."
What this really means is that George W. Bush is deeply afraid of being impeached, removed from office, and prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for treason, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the deliberate, repeated, elaborate and sickening lies that he told to the American people, the United States Congress, the United Nations Security Council and the entire world in order to mislead America into an unprovoked war of aggression, which has killed thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and has maimed and impoverished many thousands more.
Posted by: SecularAnimist
I realize it's Veterans Day, but couldn't Bush have picked a better day of the week than Friday to market a new product? I'm guessing the Sunday talk shows may be the real target, but almost noone in the normal population (non-politically obsessed like us) is going to pay attention to this, aren't going to be too attentive to the evening news tonight, and probably have better things to think about over the weekend.
Posted by: Jimm
Mike K: The stuff about "lying" to get us into war closes off debate because that is not an argument. It is an act of faith by people who will not make rational arguments.
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell and other principals of the Bush administration lied -- deliberately, repeatedly, and elaborately -- to the American people, the United States Congress, the United Nations Security Council and the entire world about what they knew was a nonexistent "threat" from nonexistent "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" in order to lead America into an unprovoked war of aggression. Their numerous lies, and the evidence that they knew their statements were untrue at the time they made them, are a matter of public record.
That is a fact. You are either in a state of idiotic denial about it, or you are also a deliberate liar.
If you think that the illegal, unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq, which has directly caused the deaths of over 2000 Americans, the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and the maiming and impoverishment of many thousands more, was a "good idea" for whatever reasons, and that it is justifiable for a president to deliberately lie to the American people and the US Congress to deceive them, through deliberate, calculated, dishonest fear-mongering, into supporting a war that they would not otherwise support, then say so.
But your incoherent ramblings about "acts of faith" by "irrational people" are just meaningless garbage.
Posted by: SecularAnimist
Apparently tautology is the real last refuge of scoundrels.
Posted by: Michael on November 11, 2005 at 8:03 PM | PERMALINK
George W. Bush, March 2002: ``Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out.''
That's March.2002.
Another distant memory. Both the Democratic leadership and media HQs were attacked with U.S. Army anthrax post 9-11 and pre-vote.....
Could that message be any clearer?
Posted by: SteveO
InstaHack gets it backwards as usual. Democratic politicians aren't getting American sentiment stirred up against the war - it's the other way around. While Democratic politicians sat on their hands and kept their mouths zipped, the American people were growing weary and concerned about Bush's war in Iraq. When the Democratic politicians were finally convinced that the polls were showing a seachange in American sentiment towards the war, they began to criticize the administration. Therefore, InstaHack can justifiably attack the Democratic politicians for being opportunitisic but it's the American public that's turned against the war. Will InstaHack call out Americans for being anti-American and unpatriotic?
Posted by: Taobhan
Asking questions of your government and thinking for yourself is unpatriotic.
Does that mean he thinks the majority of Americans are unpatriotic now?
' The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason...'
Wolfowitz quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of an interview with Vanity Fair.
If you look at the President's speech on the eve of the Iraq war on the WH web site, you will find that WMDs are mentions alomost ten times more than 'freedom' (1 time) and 'liberty' (1 time).
So to paraphrase the President, it is revisionism to suggest that Iraq war was for anything other than WMDs.
It's also worth noting that The Washington Post today has a front page article trumpeting National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley's screeching attack on "Democrats" who are want to investigate whether the Bush administration distorted, manipulated or lied about pre-war intelligence that purported to show that Iraq had WMD.
Hadley's attack is essentially a verbatim recitation of the same scripted, programmed Republican talking points that the Bush bootlicker Republican shills have been slavishly regurgitating in their recent comments on this site.
Hadley has been directly implicated in foisting upon the American people the Italian forged documents that purported to show that Iraq had purchased uranium "yellowcake" ore from Niger.
So it is particularly despicable that a person who was directly, and knowingly, responsible for specific and important lies about Iraq's nonexistent "nuclear weapons programs" is stepping forward as the White House mouthpiece to attack people who want to hold him, and others in the Bush Administration, accountable for their lies.
Well then, there should be no question. If Glenn Reynolds says Democrats are acting unpatriotically, that's good enough intel for the White House.
Posted by: zed
Since he misused the term "patriot" once again, let me say something that has bothered me for a long time: The Patriot Act is actually in place to help Republicans police dissent and curb the liberties of their political oponents and has almost nothing to do with curbing terrorism. They use a word that is antithetical to their intent, try to intimidate their opposition into silence, and, if unsuccessful make veiled refernce to unseen gulags and unceasing darkness. Republicans "leaders" of today are the heinous and dangerous group of tyrants loosed upon America--that one of their shills would impugn the legacy of real patriots in the name of sacrificing more patriots so he can cash a check is beyond the pale. If I ever hear a winger misuse the sacred term patriot again in my presence, there will be a fight. This Instapundit disgusts me and is an insult to every GI and American. If one is incapable of deeper thought on the meaning and responsibilities of freedom than that--damn him to hell and may Pat Robertson's tyrannical God strike him down. . .
Let's take this nation back by adhering to its constitution. Secret gulags for God's sake. What an embarrassment. What crimes in our name.
Reynolds lays out his case that WMDs weren't what the war was about.
Ari Fleischer refutes him thusly:
"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."
Press Briefing, 4/10/2003.
The Patriot Act is actually in place to help Republicans police dissent and curb the liberties of their political oponents and has almost nothing to do with curbing terrorism. Posted by: Sparko
Enough shame to spread around there. You've got to remember that most of the Democrats in Congress voted for it, many admitting that they hadn't even read it before voting.
Posted by: Jeff II on November 11, 2005 at 2:24 PM | PERMALINK
"In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first."
--Ambrose Bierce
So the notion that 'the inspectors found nothing, therefore there was nothing to find' is not correct. What we know is that Saddam interfered. And given his history, his non-compliance with previous UN resolutions, etc., etc., it was the final reason to go to war -- we understood that Saddam could never be trusted. And that is certainly true.
You know, if you replace the word "Saddam" with "Bush" in the above it almost makes sense.
Here's the problem for Bush and the Republicans.
They now want to say that the Dems were every bit as much enthusiastic supporters of the Iraq war as they were.
Thing is, Bush and the Republicans made their case for their own election campaigns by a loud and emphatic declaration that only THEY were the true supporters of the "war on terrorism" in Iraq. And people believed them, and voted for them.
Now that the Iraq war has turned into a fiasco and a tragedy, they have to pretend that none of this ever happened. The American people, though, who can think only very simple thoughts, do recall very well the basics here, and which party was lined up for what.
So Bush's protest that even the Dems advocated the same course in Iraq is doomed to utter and ignominious failure.
Posted by: frankly0
To put my previous post another way, the problem for the Republicans is that they have based their entire electoral appeal on DIFFERENTIATING themselves from the Democrats in terms of their aggressiveness in the Iraq war. That differentiation worked great for them in 2004.
But now the American people are seeing the enormity of the downside to such aggressiveness. The Republicans can try as hard as they want to blur the differentiation they've been pressing for years and decades, but it is certain to fail. It's just so much cognitive dissonance for the American voter, which means that it hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of being heard.
It's frankly eerie to me that just by following the news closely prior to the war it was clear to me that we would never find any WMD's, a prediction I made to anyone who would listen.
Now I find out from Bush supporters that all the evidence I was following was either false or meant the exact opposite of what it purported to mean.
That leaves me with the nagging question...how could I have known? How could I have known?!?!? Could it be that I'm....psychic????
Move over Sylvia Browne, Montel's got a new fly girl and his name is "trex!"
"I see someone standing over your shoulder...yes, it's the ghost of pre-war intelligence. It wants to make peace with you. It says if you search inside the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations you'll find the evidence you need to bring it into to light. It wants to go to the light...."
Posted by: trex on November 11, 2005 at 2:35 PM | PERMALINK
Jeebus, has everyone had their fucking memory wiped?
Muy favorite part about Bush's statements today were when he accused Democrats of trying to rewrite history.
Projection: conservative punditry's eternal wellspring. :)
Posted by: DH Walker
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 17, 2003
President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours
Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation
The Cross Hall
number of times ______ is used:
justice: 0
freedom: 1
liberty: 3
weapons: 8
Bush's attempt to identify the Dems with him on the Iraq war may be many things, but the one thing that it is most obviously is DESPERATE. When your only recourse is to argue that your opponents are the same as you, really they are, you have already lost the game.
Posted by: frankly0
the marketeer: This is, once again, an example of mistakenly believing that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
except for this...
"We know for a fact there are weapons there."
-- Ari Fleischer, Jan. 9, 2003
"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." -- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003
if you say you --know-- where they are....then none are found.....
aren't you incompetent at least...and a liar at worst.
( On the death and dying of the Bush terror regime )
1. Denial. Check.
2. Anger. Check.
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
Posted by: has407
Would it be considered bad form to recite this little fact to Mr. Reynolds? In November 1944, during the heart of a war with Adolf Hitler and the Japanese Empire, with our very civilization at stake, and with millions of American troops in harm's way, that 22 million mostly conservative Americans attempted to remove the President of the United States from power?
It's called democracy, Mr. Reynolds. You unforgivably stupid twit.
Posted by: fourmorewars
"This is, once again, an example of mistakenly believing that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence."
Clearly, we should invade Indiana, because it can't prove it DOESN'T have WMD, either.
Posted by: Smurfyhoser
Last I checked, Indiana hadn't gassed its own people (excluding Gary, IN) or actually had nuclear, chemical, and bio research in WMDs. So your argument is not logical.
Yes, but can they prove it? Remember, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
You may also want to ask the Indians from whom that state takes its name if Indiana ever engaged in genocide....
And, of course, America has used WMD in the past and has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, so should the rest of the world invade us? If that's a sufficient criteria why are we off the hook?
Posted by: Stefan
Starting with WWI, we abndoned our long-standing policy of avoiding foreign wars.
Right. Except for the Quasi War, the Barbary Wars, the Spanish-American War, the Phillipine-American War, and the Boxer Rebellion. We should probably also include all of our "military interventions" executed to further the Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt's Big Stick Diplomacy, or Wilson's Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America. And our military involvement in the Mexican Civil War.
Posted by: Andrew Wyatt
Which history does he think is being re-written?
The one where the war is about WMD?
The one where it's about links to terrorists?
The one where it's about creating democracy?
Posted by: sc on November 11, 2005 at 3:24 PM | PERMALINK
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
---Dick Cheney August 26, 2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
---George W. Bush September 12, 2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
---Ari Fleischer December 2, 2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
---Ari Fleischer January 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 January 28, 2003
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
---Colin Powell February 5, 2003
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 Bush February 8, 2003
So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
---Colin Powell March 8, 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 Bush March 18, 2003
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
---Ari Fleisher March 21, 2003
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
---Gen. Tommy Franks March 22, 2003
I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
---Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board , March 23, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
---Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark March 22, 2003
We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.
---Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003
Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty.
---Neocon scholar Robert Kagan April 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 April 10, 2003
We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.
---George Bush April 24, 2003
Posted by: Robert
Um, China's human rights record is far worse than Iraq's. Furthermore, China is still Red. So why not invade China?
Yes, horrible crimes were committed in Iraq. And horrible crimes are being committed all over the world at this very second. So why doesn't the U.S. invade everyone?
The Iraq human rights violations argument is a smokescreen. Jeffery
Now we are finally finding out just how badly the [b]ush administration's defenders have been lying when they say Democrats looked at the same intelligence as the White House - this is flat out false as proven by a January 2003 CIA report casting doubt on that intelligence, a report that was only recently given to Democrats on the Intelligence Committee.
"Are you now or have you ever been an unpatriotic member of liberals who thought that when Bush lied, people died?"
Posted by: The Dad
35%? Why do Americans hate America?
I am not versed in law, but it appears to me, a layman, that GWB and his cohorts are so forcefully trying to deny that they lied about the reasons for attacking Iraq becuase they may sense some threat of criminal prosecution if the statements of the critics do prevail.
Posted by: deadender
Why is it that conservatives blame Katrina victims for having no personal responsibility and waiting for Washington for help, but not the Iraqis for not instituting a rebellion against Saddam and instead waiting for Washington to help?
But if I'm wrong, of course, please produce the vast stockpiles of nuclear, chemical or bioligical weapons they or we found.
C'mon, you know where they are: They're buried in huge underground bunkers in the Bekaa Valley. I know this is true because I heard some retired general on Fox say so.
It's obvious what we should do now. Invade Syria, kill all their people, and convert them to Christianity.
It's what Instapundit would do.
Posted by: Basharov
Colin Powell's pathetic presentation to the UN in February of 2003 epitomizes the concerted effort undertaken by the BushCabal to mislead America and the world at large in favor of an invasion of Iraq. And this dog-and-pony show was undertaken as the UN inspectors were finding no WMDs, as Saddam was destroying ballistic missles identified as violating UN limitations, and as millions world wide were marching for peace.
I will never forgive Powell for placing his manhood in a blind trust held by Cheney and using his last shreds of credibility to pimp for an unnecessary and unjust war. For the former Joint Chief of Staff to argue that 81 mm rocket artillery casings were "centrifuge" bits, and to argue that obsolete British hydrogen generator trucks were "mobile biological weapons laboratories" was an insult to his military career. He had to have known what bullshit he was putting out.
Even if the BushCabal sincerely believed that Saddam had a fleet of nuclear missles hidden in the desert, it is indisputable that he did not and reasonable experts were saying so at the time. Bush wanted war, used any and every excuse, no matter how tenuous, to justify war, and stopped at nothing to get it. The result is bilions squandered and thousands dead.
Posted by: petronius
And remember, that Colin Powell rejected the majority of what the White House wanted him to say, so as bad as Powell's presentation was, the most egregious of the lies the Bush administration wanted him to tell didn't even make it into the presentation.
Posted by: SecularAnimist
Damn. Based on the latest polls, 55-60% of the American people think Bush lied about WMD in Iraq. Hard to see how the country can survive with so many traitors running around loose.
Posted by: Billmon
The big thing Bush and Instahack and the Republicans don't get is that the "you're not a real patriot" line has its place and time, and it's not now or here.
For four long years, they've been pissing with the wind with this insult onto the Democrats, but now they're pissing into wind.
McCarthy's questioning of people's patriotism was political catnip until a famous day on TV, and then it became political toxin. The more McCarthy ramped up the invective and lunacy, the worse he fared in the public eye.
You're in the high thirties in approval Georgie Boy -- think you can find your way down to the twenties?
Posted by: frankly0
The problem with this debate is its ever-shifting sands of justification. If you assert that no WMD's were found then you're told the war was really about liberation. If you say Congress didn't authorize an invasion based on liberation you're told we couldn't know for sure that Saddam didn't have WMD's. When you cite the lack of pre-war evidence for WMD's you're told that every country in the world believed it, including Clintonia and Democratistan. When you cite evidence to disprove this you're told the war was about liberation again and that WMD's were actually found but the liberal media won't report it.
In the end you're just called a traitor for questioning what is apparently so patently obvious it's hard to explain.
Posted by: trex
They seem to get their notions of what's plausible from watching James Bond movies.
That's why I never believed that whole story about Saddam's giant laser in his hollowed-out volcano island fortress.
Posted by: Stefan
I hear Cheney was at Arlington today, presumably to feast on the blood of real veterans.
I hope he took the time to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Chickenhawk....
Posted by: Stefan
Bush said today: "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."
What this really means is that George W. Bush is deeply afraid of being impeached, removed from office, and prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for treason, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the deliberate, repeated, elaborate and sickening lies that he told to the American people, the United States Congress, the United Nations Security Council and the entire world in order to mislead America into an unprovoked war of aggression, which has killed thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and has maimed and impoverished many thousands more.
Posted by: SecularAnimist
I realize it's Veterans Day, but couldn't Bush have picked a better day of the week than Friday to market a new product? I'm guessing the Sunday talk shows may be the real target, but almost noone in the normal population (non-politically obsessed like us) is going to pay attention to this, aren't going to be too attentive to the evening news tonight, and probably have better things to think about over the weekend.
Posted by: Jimm
Mike K: The stuff about "lying" to get us into war closes off debate because that is not an argument. It is an act of faith by people who will not make rational arguments.
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell and other principals of the Bush administration lied -- deliberately, repeatedly, and elaborately -- to the American people, the United States Congress, the United Nations Security Council and the entire world about what they knew was a nonexistent "threat" from nonexistent "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" in order to lead America into an unprovoked war of aggression. Their numerous lies, and the evidence that they knew their statements were untrue at the time they made them, are a matter of public record.
That is a fact. You are either in a state of idiotic denial about it, or you are also a deliberate liar.
If you think that the illegal, unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq, which has directly caused the deaths of over 2000 Americans, the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and the maiming and impoverishment of many thousands more, was a "good idea" for whatever reasons, and that it is justifiable for a president to deliberately lie to the American people and the US Congress to deceive them, through deliberate, calculated, dishonest fear-mongering, into supporting a war that they would not otherwise support, then say so.
But your incoherent ramblings about "acts of faith" by "irrational people" are just meaningless garbage.
Posted by: SecularAnimist
Apparently tautology is the real last refuge of scoundrels.
Posted by: Michael on November 11, 2005 at 8:03 PM | PERMALINK
George W. Bush, March 2002: ``Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out.''
That's March.2002.
Another distant memory. Both the Democratic leadership and media HQs were attacked with U.S. Army anthrax post 9-11 and pre-vote.....
Could that message be any clearer?
Posted by: SteveO
InstaHack gets it backwards as usual. Democratic politicians aren't getting American sentiment stirred up against the war - it's the other way around. While Democratic politicians sat on their hands and kept their mouths zipped, the American people were growing weary and concerned about Bush's war in Iraq. When the Democratic politicians were finally convinced that the polls were showing a seachange in American sentiment towards the war, they began to criticize the administration. Therefore, InstaHack can justifiably attack the Democratic politicians for being opportunitisic but it's the American public that's turned against the war. Will InstaHack call out Americans for being anti-American and unpatriotic?
Posted by: Taobhan
posted by professor rat at 11:12 PM
<< Home