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Audacity of Truth
Spinsational:
"We were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values."
-Obama, explaining recent Democrat losses, 1/20/10
Velvet Lair- The sexiness of winning the battle of good versus evil January 26, 2010
- Ever wonder why? January 12, 2010
- The decision to bench Peyton Manning: Right or wrong? December 28, 2009
- Is my dad turning into a metrosexual? November 24, 2009
- My “Things To Do For Christmas” list November 23, 2009
Playing politics with the war
I posted this on a message board I frequent this morning and wanted to repost it here (with minor alterations so it makes more sense):
It’s one thing to play politics when there are no lives at stake but when there ARE lives at risk, playing politics by claiming “Bush lied” (IOW, telling the troops they are fighting for no reason) is reprehensible in the truest sense of the word – especially when the people making the claim in Washington DC KNOW that the “lying” accusations are bogus.
I have had discussions in the past with people about how certain types of dissent emboldens the enemy. Those people have agreed that yes, that dissent does embolden the enemy, but that dissent is a product of a free society and that it’s our duty to dissent. I agreed with that, but also pointed out that certain types of dissent are flat out wrong – and this is one of those times. This isn’t dissent based out of any real belief that the President “lied” because I’d bet you every Democrat in Washington making this charge reviewed similar evidence back in the mid to late 90s when Clinton was President and deemed it credible, and did NOT deem it as “misleading” or “lies.” What’s happening now is that the DNC is trying to capitalize on the President’s low approval rating in an attempt to gain advantage ahead of the 2006 elections, and they are doing it on the backs of the men and women serving our country in Iraq by making KNOWINGLY false assertions that the President – their Commander in Chief – lied about the reasons he sent them there.
I’ll say again: playing politics is one thing, and you expect a heavy amount of it; after all, we’re talking about politicians here. But to do so in such a disingenuous fashion while we still have troops in harms way is in so many ways wrong I can’t even put it into words. Do we need to continue to question and reform our intelligence gathering capabilities? Yes. Does the administration deserve criticism for what’s happened since the fall of Baghdad in terms of post-war planning? Absolutely. Does the President, as our Commander in Chief who acted on not only recent intelligence but intelligence that went back to the days Clinton was in the WH (intelligence Clinton himself used to justify aggressive US policy towards Iraq) deserve to be accused of “lying” when he gave the reasons why he wanted to send 150K of our young men and women to die – reasons that most of the same crew who are accusing him of lying now went along with when they were given by a Democratic president? I don’t think so.
This is why what’s happening in DC right now totally disgusts me – the DNC are playing politics with this war for political gain while our men and women are still trying to complete the mission and they are doing it making knowingly bogus claims about the reasons our men and women were sent there in the first place. It makes me sick. And guess what? The propaganda campaign is working. A majority of Americans now think the President “intentionally misled” them on the reasons for going into Iraq. We can “thank” our liberal media and lying Democrats in Congress for that.
(Cross-posted at California Conservative)
PM Update: Read this post by Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive’s blog: “Pushback- I was for the war before I was against it“. Total must-read!
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ST,
From your own comments section you can see that it isn’t just the politicians in DC playing the game. I don’t have to name the guilty. They pipe up and others troll through daily.
A majority of these people I do consider to be Anti-Americans, if not America Haters. I see nothing in their rhetoric to build or defend America, only to attack it like a holy jihad of theirs.
Kinda like someone insisting he has a right to smoke while standing in the middle of a gasoline spill. You have a right, but also a responsibility.
Felt so good to read that. And yes. It is “lying” on their part. It isn’t even the pot calling the kettle black. It isn’t even hypocracy. It is false allegations and I can’t figure out why except to say they disagreed with going to war and don’t want us there (which Brian denies as he is more nuanced – yet still making accusations). The best that anyone like Brian can do is point to disagreemetns within the intelligence community and say see Bush misrepresented the intelligence to get us to war. I’m sorry. But if there was a 2nd view and it was the minority opinion in the intelligence community and more than 80% of politicians who have access to the intelligence thought the same things and said the same things – what’s the problem.
I am really getting sick and tired of the “dissent is patriotic!” meme that is constantly hyped by the most anti-American, unpatriotic members of the Democratic party and the Left. Bull, it depends on the issue. I suppose then that they believe that all the people who lined up to block schools and throw rocks and bottles at black children trying to get into a white school during desegregation were “true patriots” who were doing their duty to “dissent.”
It is issue dependent, as you point out. Automatically naysaying every freaking thing the government does is not patriotic dissent, it’s opportunistic whining, and it’s damaging to the country.
What’s most distressing is, of course, the fact that Goebbel’s “Big Lie” theory is still being proven correct, as the number of people in this country who care more about the latest gossip about celebrities than current events and politics are obviously sucumbing to the “Big Lie” in a major way.
What I think is really odd is that all these folks in DC who are accusing GW of lying are suppose to be smart, intelligent people. Or they are suppose to be. Infact one of them has been called the smartest woman in the world. Now all of a sudden they are to dumb to realize that 1 individual was deceiving them?? Someone needs to come clean alright, and it ain’t GW. – Lorica
The smartest woman wasn’t duped by Bush but by the evil masterminds Rove and Cheney! They were in power before Bush came into office and that is why all those Democrats said what they said in 1998 about Iraq.
ST,
dontcha realize that this war is ALL political gaming. Right from the start. The Dems have simply figured out the GOP gameplan, and are turning it back on them.
Lorica,
That was some amazing mind yoga you wrote there!
Zorro, uh huh. And 9/11 was political gaming. It was planned by the Bushies (and Israel) to the public to want to go to war.
Welp. All I’ve gotta say is the Democrats have a really lousy game plan that is costing people thier lives (giving aid and comfort to the enemy as they think they are this close “” to making us leave). And a lot of conservatives like myself wish we were knocking the crap out of whole buildings that a sniper fired from and stating that loudly and proudly that sniper fire won’t be tolerated. And we also wish that anyone found with explosive residue on their hands were executed as they were likely the ones setting up the IED’s that keep blowing up our service men and other innocent Iraqi’s. Until Iraq is under control there is no reason for any Iraqi to have any explosive or weapon as they should be under strict control. I DO FAULT Bush for being too “nice” and having a policy of negotiating with Zarqawi and not bombing Mosques even though fighters were known to be hiding in them.
We WON WW2 and Japan and Germany is much better off even though we took to leveling cities like Dresden, Germany and Nagasaki, Japan. We have gone out of our way in this war to not hurt civilians and yet the opponent and the mass media (and some Democrats) still act like we are targeting civilians.
I believe strongly that the blood of more than 1/2 of our servicemen is on the hands of the tactics of the mass media and Democrats. They have emboldened the enemy, elongated this war, politicized it, and decreased the morale of our troops. When I was in the military in 1988-1994 I was very aware of the civilians outlook on us. And guess what, when we heard comments (and it almost always a Democrat who made the comments) it made us mad and demoralized us at the same time because we knew there was nothing we could do.
Zorro,
The Democrats are flat out lying to everyone, including themselves. This isn’t a game. I wonder if you’d really be remorseful if Mohammad blew up a daycare center in the US because he knew the Democrats would cower, cut, and run based on your posts that he read, and Mohammad left a note stating such. I wonder how much a game that is Zorro.
Well, what plan has the democrats given? All this time of posturing and Dean says, we will have one in 2006?!?!? The plan has been they don’t have one but obstructionism. So how can they be taken seriously.
It’s easy enough to go around and spout BUSH LIED, but would they care to back up those statements. Ah, speaking of statements, would they like to explain thier own statements concerning the war? Seems the democrats seem to forget or hope the public doesn’t remember thier own statements from the past.
Perhaps it would be a good time to remind them. I think it would be dang good if the republicans, and especially the president start standing ground, and give the COMPLETE list of statements by these blowhards that say he is lying. Start with Clinton and her wife Bill, move on to Kerry and Reid. Go down the entire list, let them chew on thier own words.
By the way, suddenly it is a mass conspiracy by the dumb monkey boy chimpbush…rolls eyes. He is either to stupid to run the country or has outsmarted every senator in congress and deceived the nation into war. Make up your minds will you.
I say let it become a media blitz, start taking out ads and running spots with what these senators have said in the past. Let them public know that the UN, Japan, Russia, and a score of other intellgence agencies backed up those findings. Show the public exactly what kind of falseness is behind the democratic party. and the extreme measures the democrats will go through to undermine a sitting president in a time of war while putting troops in danger because of what the democrats have lied about.
Speaking of outrageous behaviour, I also think a senate investigation should be brought against senator Jay Rockefeller and his abuse and most likely traitorous act of revealing US plans of war to other countries. Though it will most likely be glossed over by the media, and democrats saying, “no story here, move on, nothing to see here.”
PCD, Your response is better. This isn’t a game. The Democrats/leftists in question should feel shame for their action but don’t.
They are like the bullies in the playground. Some grow up and realize their actions were hurtful. Many don’t. What will it take for them? It isn’t funny. It’s serious. It’s not just a disagreement like should we spend more or less or the same – it’s an accusation that is untrue in a time of war.
Thank You for the compliment Zorro. I appreciate it. – Lorica
Zorro, if that is the way you go around leaving your “Z” on other people’s arguments, I’d say you need some more training in the fine art of using that whip. A lot more training.
Sister Toldjah,
If President Bush or someone in his administration misrepresented intelligence on Iraq, should this be overlooked because there are American troops fighting in Iraq? If the Bush Administration did not mislead anyone with Iraq why aren’t the Republicans willing to investigate this matter? When Democrats wanted this issue investigated in March 2004, Republicans blocked their efforts.
How do you know that the enemy is emboldened by criticism of the president? There hasn’t been any criticism of the war in Afghanistan but that’s not stopping the resistance. 2005 is the deadliest year for American troops in Afghanistan since the war in 2001.
How do you or anyone else know that the intelligence on Iraq was accurately portrayed by the president and his administration in 2002-2003? How do you know that nobody withheld intelligence that contradicted claims about Iraqi weapons programs? It’s not just Democrats that are accusing the Bush Administration of misleading us into war. There are also CIA officials and State Dept. officials that disputed the claims being made by the president.
Baklava,
The issue isn’t what percent of the intelligence community agreed or disagreed with the president. The issue is whether or not intelligence reports that contradicted the administration’s views were withheld from members of Congress. Congress does not have access to the same intelligence that the president does. They only have access to what the president gives them.
From reading some of the comments, it seems that you and Sister Toldjah and some of the others here seem to have this view that intelligence can only present one of two views. Either the intelligence says Iraq has WMD’s or Iraq does not have WMD’s. This is not the case. Intelligence consists of all of the evidence supporting both views. If there was evidence that Iraq did not have any WMD’s, it should have been presented along with whatever evidence there was supporting the claim that Iraq had WMD’s. If evidence that contradicted this position was withheld in order to make the case for war, then it is a serious issue.
You said, “We WON WW2 and Japan and Germany is much better off even though we took to leveling cities like Dresden, Germany and Nagasaki, Japan.”
Leveling cities in Germany did not win the war. We still had to invade and conquer Germany. We dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. Are you advocating that we drop a nuclear bomb on an Iraqi city? The Soviet Union used the same tactics in Afghanistan that you are advocating we use in Iraq. Did the Soviet Union win in Afghanistan?
You said, “I believe strongly that the blood of more than 1/2 of our servicemen is on the hands of the tactics of the mass media and Democrats. They have emboldened the enemy, elongated this war, politicized it, and decreased the morale of our troops”
What is your evidence or basis for this? Can you cite a specific instance where a soldier was killed as a result of something the mass media or the Democrats did? Why are you critical of them but not the president? The president was told by his generals that we would need hundreds of thousands of troops to be able to occupy Iraq but he refused to listen to them. Maybe if he did, the insurgency would have been defeated by now.
Abit confused here. If evidence presented says there are WMDs in Iraq, then doesn’t all other evidence become false?? It seems to me to be a given. – Lorica
Brian,
First of all, how could the President mislead these sentaors when they had access to the same intel he did? Are you saying now that all the other nations intel were wrong? Japan? Russian? UN? It is just absurd to sit there and say HE LIED, HE MANIPULATED THE REPORTS..ect when these sentaors saw the reports he saw, they also had access to the intel from other countries given to the US. DO you think these senators wouldn’t be screaming bloody murder if they weren’t given firect access to this information before voting to go to war? Everyone is saying he lied, he ‘misrepresented. Lets have some proof. We want to talk about liars, how about all these senators BEFORE BUSH EVEN GOT INTO OFFICE, and EVEN CLINTON SAID that Saddam must be taken out, he had WMDs. So how could Now Pres. Bush have mislead Clinton and the other congressman back then? Your arguement does not hold water.
Btw here is an interesting read on where the WMDs went: LINK
How does it not embolden the enemy? Heck it has been proven they play it on Al-jazeera. The US is the Paper Tiger they say. Hit it hard enough and it will crumble and float away. And if Democrats had thier way, they would have proven these terrorists right.
*sighs* Again, this intelligence was during CLINTONS administration, Clinton even stated it. Will you now accuse Clinton of lying and misleading the public? How about those sentaors that said saddam had WMDs and should be taken out BEFORE bush was even in office? Would you care to label them liars? Say they have misled the people?
Hmmm how about false stories of Koran flushing causing wide spread rioting and deaths to US soldiers? A FALSE story run by the media, who later apologized for it, but that won’t bring back those killed becasue of the media stupidity to try and gain more sales or cast the US in a bad light.
Interesting read, Myths and Facts about the Media: LINK
Hold up those signs real high:
NO BLOOD FOR OIL!!!
NO BLOOD FOR HALLIBURTON!!!
BUSH = HITLER
:rolls eyes:
How can any sane person believe this crapola. Zombietimes is just full of the idiocy of rediculous protestors making complete fools of themselves.
Brian,
Why are you so blind? Is your Bush hatred that deep or do you think you can undermine the US with your contiued kvetching?
I really do enjoy http://www.zombietime.com. Let’s me know just who the extreme left is. I have to commend this man for his work and daring. – Lorica
Brian wrote, “If President Bush or someone in his administration misrepresented intelligence on Iraq, should this be overlooked because there are American troops fighting in Iraq”
No Brian. It isn’t a question of “if”. The intelligence wasn’t misrepresented so therefore your inaccurate accusation carries no “overlooking” on our part. All of us have looked at your “evidence” and see only disagreements between some in the intelligence community with the majority in the intelligence community and what was the prevailing opinion at the time by all major leaders and intelligence organizations. NOW you are accusing us of “overlooking”.
Brian ridiculously wrote, “If the Bush Administration did not mislead anyone with Iraq why aren’t the Republicans willing to investigate this matter”
Look at page 283 of the Senate Intelligence Report shows 273 on bottom of page). It says “The Committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with Administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so. When asked whether analysts were pressured in any way to alter their assessments or make their judgments conform with Administration policies on Iraq’s WMD programs, not a single analyst answered “yes.” Most analysts simply answered, “no” or “never,” but some provided more extensive responses. Some of their responses are below:
You Brian can read those analyst responses that were extensive.
Brian wrote, “How do you know that the enemy is emboldened by criticism of the president?
The better question is – How do you know they aren’t? I’d want to fall on the side of not having our servicemen killed due to my political gameplan.
Brian asked, “How do you or anyone else know that the intelligence on Iraq was accurately portrayed by the president and his administration in 2002-2003?”
We read.
Brian wrote, “The issue is whether or not intelligence reports that contradicted the administration’s views were withheld from members of Congress.
That’s a new and false accusation. The Senate receives the same intelligence that the White House received. If the CIA did withhold from Congress their should be charges pressed on the CIA for witholding. It’s an accusation without basis as it stands. What you are confusing is the fact that the President received PDB’s and NEI’s and the Congress didn’t receive those PDB’s and NEI’s. Those are summaries essentially and do not present NEW information. Your accusation again is FALSE.
Brian very funnily wrote, “Intelligence consists of all of the evidence supporting both views.
We know that Brian. But you are making charges that the president (I guess all other politicians who had the same conclusion as the president did also) ingored or didn’t present or pressured or whatever you are arguing and it isn’t true. The majority of politicians all thought the same thing and all the intelligence was shared with both the White House and The Congress. ALL. And guess what that included dissenting views. And guess what? If you read the page 283/273 you’ll see that nobody was pressured to give a different view than what they thought. Your accusations are FALSE.
Brian displays his reading comprehension skills by saying, “Leveling cities in Germany did not win the war.“.
If I say the sky is blue Brian you’ll argue with it. I didn’t say that we won the war by leveling cities. I was talking about a concept that was LOST on you that we are going out of our way to be nice and not target innocents and yet the left’s way of waging a war has COST us lots of lives. Many conservatives think the way we are conducting this war is not strong enough. Concepts are important. You can start to understand them or ignore them. I was simply giving a conservatives point of view. You can learn from it for once.
Brian shows his extremeness by writing, “Are you advocating that we drop a nuclear bomb on an Iraqi city?
No.
Brian wrote, “Why are you critical of them but not the president?”
Because the president is firm that we aren’t pulling out until the job is done. It is the leftists and media (same thing) that are giving a sense to the enemy that they are this close “” to having our president say ok ok we’ll pull out.
Brian issued another false statement by saying, “The president was told by his generals that we would need hundreds of thousands of troops to be able to occupy Iraq but he refused to listen to them.”
The president gave his generals what they asked for. ONE general (not in the arena) stated something different and you BRIAN use that to say “his generals”. It is one FALSE charge after another with you guys. And not ONE of the charges can we alleviate your concerns because you DISMISS our point of view entirely. You’ll change the argument and probably say, “That general was dismissed” even though that CHARGE by leftists was completely debunked (due to chronology and logic).
I’d say this. I don’t know what kind of relationship you are looking for. Are you looking for the kind of relationship where you just get all worked up and admonish us on every one of our statements and wish we would say to each one of your arguments, “I’m sorry Brian were wrong”. We have a point of view and you do. You’ve hammered your point of view home. We disagree with it. We’ve read and read and you dismiss our view. Your view holds false accusation after false accusation and I don’t know what you’d like us to do except say “you are right Brian the President is guilty” even though he isn’t.
If someone said my daughter was out all night but she was in bed at 9PM and well rested and took a test that day in school and aced it and did Ice Skating after school… I’d say I don’t believe your charge. If you continue on with the charge and bring new facts and I continue to bring new facts but you dismiss them and DON’T READ THEM and MISCONSTRUE what is said then we can’t help you. It’s as if I said, I am a good parent who is firm and we start the bed time routine at 8PM, do story reading and make sure the head hits the pillow at 9PM and you come back and say, “so what you want to take my kids and throw them into bed at 9PM?” That’s how ridiculous your reading comprehension is I feel. Look at your paragraph on nuking Iraq. You should stop now while you are ahead.
I have been looking for a better relationship with leftists. I apologize that you are offended that my feeling is that you are making the enemy “feel” they are this close “” to making us leave Iraq but I’m allowed to state my feeling. I’d appreciate it if you could just state YOUR feelings and YOUR views and not accuse, misconstrue, misrepresent what I say, etc. When you go on acting you know what I wished for or think and it’s incorrect… you should hear that it’s incorrect instead of dismissing that. I’m telling you what I said or wish or think is different that what you portray. Listen.
WHEN WILL YOU Edited-ST PEOPLE REALIZE THAT IRAQ PLAYED NO PART IN 9/11!?
sorry for shouting, but it was necessary. This war is political gaming, and has nothing to do with protecting us at home. Period. End. Of. Story.
Nobody is saying that Iraq did Zorro!
We are in a War on Terror. This isn’t a war against Saudi Arabis because 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. This is a War on Terror.
NOBODY has said that Iraq is responsible for 9/11. The only people you hear that phrase from is Democrats insinuating that someone has said it (like you Zorro). Don’t you hate being wrong? Maybe you should change the sources of your information!:razz:
Anyone interested in Saddam’s dealings with al Quaeda should read a new book by Stephen F. Hayes, titled The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. Facts are presented that would make a liberal’s head twirl like a top. If, that is, facts matter to the left.
Baklava,
You do not know whether or not intelligence was misrepresented by anyone in the Bush Administration. You don’t want them to have misrepresented any intelligence so that is what you choose to believe. It doesn’t matter to you what the facts are. The most blatant example of intelligence not being presented accurately would be the aluminum tubes that Iraq was accused of using for uranium centrifuges.
Those tubes became a critical exhibit in the administration’s brief against Iraq. As the only physical evidence the United States could brandish of Mr. Hussein’s revived nuclear ambitions, they gave credibility to the apocalyptic imagery invoked by President Bush and his advisers. The tubes were “only really suited for nuclear weapons programs,” Condoleezza Rice, the president’s national security adviser, explained on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
But almost a year before, Ms. Rice’s staff had been told that the government’s foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and two senior administration officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets.
LINK
You said,
“Brian ridiculously wrote, “If the Bush Administration did not mislead anyone with Iraq why aren’t the Republicans willing to investigate this matter”
And then you responded by saying that the Senate Report showed analyst were not pressured to produce intelligence products to conform with Administration policy. Whether or not analysts were pressured does not prove or disprove that the administration misused intelligence to make their case for war. The Republicans refused to include this in their investigation. Regarding whether or not any analysts were pressured, there are CIA officials who dispute what the report says.
If the Senate receives the same intelligence as the White House, why is the Vice-President blocking papers to the Senate Intelligence Panel? Why is the administration refusing to allow the Senate to see his PDB?
LINK
You dispute that President Bush did not give his generals the number of troops they asked for. His chief of staff said it would take hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy Iraq.
LINK
General Shinseki was not the only one who didn’t think enough troops were sent to Iraq. Senator John McCain was in Iraq recently and he said that many soldiers were telling him they did not have enough troops to do the job. The late Colonel David Hackworth, the most decorated U.S. soldier ever, said there were not enough troops there to put down an insurrection.
LINK
You have a very poor understanding of the situation there. You seem to think we are being “too nice”. I don’t know where you got the idea that we have a policy of negotiating with Zarqawi, we don’t. Our only policy towards Zarqawi is that he should be either killed or captured. You are unable to understand that if we use the tactics you advocate, the only thing that will happen is more Iraqis and Moslems in general will turn against us.
Regarding using a nuclear bomb in Iraq, in case you weren’t able to figure this out, I was being facetious.
Do you really think that if people stopped criticizing the president, the insurgents would lay down their weapons and stop killing American soldiers? I don’t think this would make any difference to the insurgents. I see most of the insurgents’ success as coming from the poor job of planning and carrying out the war by President Bush and his administration. I think at one time there was a possibility of bringing stability to Iraq if we did things right. I’m hoping that it’s not too late now.
Brian,
You and Zorro have a problem. You don’t like the truth. You spin and spew Democrat talking points. Your failed candidate Kerry is whining about not getting intelligence reports. If the damned fool would attend the briefings, he’d have gotten just the same material as the White House gets. Remember Kerry missed 76% of the briefings while he was running for President, and his attendance wasn’t too good before that. Check the archives at Viking Pundit’s blog. VP is a Massachusetts resident who extensive blogs on Kerry’s absences.
Biran, you in particular give aid and comfort to the enemy. You are telling Al Queda, “Hold on, we’ll get rid of Bush and you can have Iraq and anything else you want.”
Brian wrote, “You do not know…
Yep. I do. I’d say the best case scenario for you is that YOU DON’T KNOW and yet you continue questioning as if it’s your duty in a time of war. Intelligence was not misrepresented Brian. It was quoted carefully and the Senators saw the same intelligence and the previous administration saw 95% of the volume of intelligence.
Brian wrote, “You don’t want…”
You don’t know what I want.
Brian wrote, “It doesn’t matter to you what the facts are”
You don’t know what matters to me obviously. Let me twll you and I’m in the position to know what matters to me. It matters to me what the facts are.
Brian wrote, “The most blatant example of intelligence not being presented accurately would be the aluminum tubes that Iraq was accused of using for uranium centrifuges
This is where the argument falls down for you.
GROUP OF CIA PEOPLE X – Believe one thing about the aluminum tubes.
GROUP OF CIA PEOPLE Y – Believe another thing about the aluminum tubes.
Both groups got their information to the Senate and White House. Group Y was smaller. Group X had good reason and was larger. You are accusing the administration of misrepresenting something that was presented to him from group X just because later it may have been found to be incorrect.. Well… The intelligence was incorrect on WMD’s ALSO.
The only thing you can do after hearing this argument is continue beating the political drum and MAKING FALSE accusations. There is no way you can hear what I just said and actually believe that the administration MISREPRESENTED when he simply rpesented what GROUP X was saying.
Brian relayed, “The tubes were “only really suited for nuclear weapons programs” Condoleezza Rice, the president’s national security adviser, explained on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002.
Exactly. Dr. Rice is not a nuclear expert and was simply relaying what GROUP X said. Dr. Rice is in no position to second guess what the larger GROUP (group x) was saying.
I said what you wrote was ridiculous (this part, “why aren’t the Republicans willing to investigate this matter”” Because it has been investigated and continues to be investigated. Your question which begins with, “why aren’t” shows either lying or ignorance. I included an excerpt from the investigation on Prewar intelligence from page 273/283 so you can see that no CIA agents were pressured (another one of your LYING accussations – you were rebutted straight from the CIA agents mouths)
Brian, “chief of staff” is not his generals on the field. YOur accusation is moving goal posts. You failed. The fact is that the president gave his generals the troop levels they asked for. John McCain nor the other Colonel is in position to make the requests for the generals on the field. Essentially what you are saying is that there are individuals who are highly respected who DISAGREE with what the generals on the field asked for and then you are moving that problem to the Presidents shoulders. Why? Are you obsessed? Can you not see that the responsibility lies with the generals to ask for what they need? Let’s say you have a wife who is at the beach. She tells you she needs x amount of food to feed the kids. You tell her, “are you sure? – because I’ll give you all that you need”. She says, “I’m sure”. Mommy/wife of another man comes along and says (after food delivery), “That isn’t enough food. Your husband didn’t bring you enough food”. So she goes to the beach reporter and reports that news. Now it’s in print. The husband is asked by other reporters. The husband says, “I gave her all that she asked for”. It requires logic and common sense Brian. This isn’t even Critical Thinking 101 (which I took).
Brian asked about, “negotiating with Zarqa” I may be mistaken buy reporters reported it during fallujah #1.
From this point on. I’ll take all your comments as being “facetious”, because you’ve been adequately explained to and anyone who was on the fence reading our comments can see that your posts are off the deep end. Obsessive with one person or group of people.
YOu asked, “Do you really think that if people stopped criticizing the president, the insurgents would lay down their weapons and stop killing American soldiers?”
I think theat if they see unity and resolve that they will get a better understanding that they have no chance. Right now they see a chance. When people see a possibility they might act on it. If they see no possibility they will realize their efforts are futile.
Brian wrote, “I see most of the insurgents’ success as coming from the poor job of planning and carrying out the war by President Bush and his administration.”
The troops and officers in the theater are carrying out the war. Your obssessiveness is showing again.
Baklava,
According to the article I previously posted: LINK
The National Intelligence Estimate delivered to the Intelligence Committee nine days before the Senate vote on the war resolution stands as one of the most flawed documents in the history of American intelligence. The committee concluded unanimously that most of the major findings in the estimate were wrong, unfounded or overblown.
According to General Anthony Zinni, Commander in chief of the United States Central Command, 1997-2000, when he was commander of CENTCOM, we had a plan for an invasion of Iraq, and it had specific numbers in it. We wanted to go in there with 350,000 to 380,000 troops. General Shinseki was going by the plan in his request for troops. This was not one general that was just stating something different.
Here’s what Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence, 1997-2000, had to say on how the war was planned:
From the beginning, i was asked which side I took, Shinseki’s or Rumsfeld’s. And I said Shinseki. I mean, Rumsfeld proudly announced that he had told General Franks to fight this war with different tactics in which they would bypass enemy strongholds and enemy resistance and keep on moving. But it was shocking to me that the secretary of defense would tell the Army how to fight. He doesn’t know how to fight; he has no business telling them. It’s completely within civilian authority to tell you where to fight, what our major objective is, but it is absolutely no one’s business but uniformed military to tell you how to do the job. To me, it was astonishing that Rumsfeld would presume to tell four-star generals, in the Army thirty-five years, how to do their jobs.
Now here’s another thing that Rumsfeld did. As he was being briefed on the war plan, he was cherry-picking the units to go. In other words, he didn’t just approve the deployment list, he went down the list and skipped certain units that were at a higher degree of readiness to go and picked units that were lower on the list — for reasons we don’t know. But here’s the impact: Recently, at an event, a mother told me how her son had been recruited and trained as a cook. Three weeks before he deployed to Iraq, he was told he was now a gunner. And they gave him training for three weeks, and then off he went.
Here’s the article with the above comments and also some other retired military leaders writing about how poor of a job this administration has done in planning out the war in Iraq: LINK
If you are going to claim that the troop level going into Iraq was based on what the military commanders asked for and not what Donald Rumsfeld wanted, please provide references.
It’s very clear to most people that the president and his administration did a very poor job of planning out this war. If you’re not able to see this, there is obviously nothing I can do.
nope nothing. You’ve stated your case. It’s very very flawed.
You can make claims like you’ve done about every president during every war including the 4 pres’s who were over Vietnam and the ones over Korea and WW2. Not sure what you are getting at now. You’ve moved the goal posts again.
You want the president impeached because you judge the people sent to Iraq were “lower on the list” and/or American soldiers died (at a much lower rate of death than the 65,000 who died during the Vietnam war)? Not sure.
The only thing I know is you have an interesting personality. My judgement is that you like to judge and put people on the defensive and have people explain to you and then not listen and move the discussion to other topics so as to put up a laundry list of things that what ? Are impeachable? Not something that any other administration has done? Above your standards of Standard Opearting Procedure? Against some law?
Nobody here Brian is saying the President is perfect. I personally seem to agree with the president between 50% – 70% of the time.
But, we are in Iraq. While we are there you can continue moving the goalposts and making a laundry list of accusations or realize that no intelligence was “manipulated” by the pres. It was presented by intelligence officers to Congress and the White House already flawed. It was the reason why Clinton bombed Iraq for 30 days in 1998. It was the reason why almost everyone thought Iraq was a country we needed to go to war with given the realities of 9/11. THat ISN’T saying Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Neither was Afghanistan. For all we know Osama is in Pakistan.
You can continue your present pattern (which is ugly) or realize that your FALSE accusations are not helpful during this time of war. I know what you’ll choose already.
Baklava,
You said President Bush provided his generals with the troops they asked for. Please provide references. I’ve already showed you multiple references showing that President Bush did not give his generals the number of troops necessary to occupy Iraq.
You’ve showed me references from generals not in the field and others. Your accusation is without merit for that reason alone. You and others are therefore obsessed!
Brian- Let’s start with General Tommy Franks. He has been on record numerous times stating that the troop levels were more than adequate. See all this nonsense started on his watch. Who we are hearing from is the retired military personnel armchair quarterbacking what they think is the problem. And people like you run with it. Why are the active generals/superiors in Iraq/Afganistan not calling Bush a liar? He has gone on record at least 5 times that I can remember saying that they will get what is asked for but they aren’t asking for more troops!
Pam,
It is against the law for a general on active duty to call the President of the United States a liar. How are you not able to see how badly things are going there?
Since General Franks is retired why isn’t he bashing GW?? Here is a couple of comments that General Franks has said about President Bush:
“As I look at President Bush, I think he will ultimately be judged as a man of extremely high character. A very thoughtful man, not having been appraised properly by those who would say he’s not very smart. I find the contrary. I think he’s very, very bright. And I suspect that he’ll be judged as a man who led this country through a crease in history effectively. Probably we’ll think of him in years to come as an American hero.”
And then about the Iraq War:
On the motivation for the Iraq war: Contrary to claims that top Pentagon brass opposed the invasion of Iraq, Franks said he wholeheartedly agreed with the president’s decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein.
And here is the link that from my websearch. For those that think I always want you to take my word on things.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml
Also Please stop confusing the Iraq War for this new invasion of foreign fighters. It is not in “insurrection” and there are no “insurgents”. Almost every fighter that we have killed is from another country.
Ohhhh and also, despite what some believe our boys are doing great in Iraq. New schools and hospitals are built all the time. The Iraqi people love our troops over there because they know the protection they are under, when the best military in the world is there. Anything outside of that is the blah blah blah of the “hate Bush” crowd including the NY Times. Who has more egg on their face than my plate did this morning. – Lorica
Good points Lorica! And Brian, what is so bad?
Oh no Lorica! Those words are to be dismissed and the islamist inmate at Gitmo is to be believed! WOO HOO HOO:lol:
Must have been getting his information from the NYT. We know how much a fountain of information NYT and other MSM are.
Why not check out some of the MIL blogs, some Iaqi blogs, see what the soldiers and the Iraqis have to say personally.
If you can’t seem to find any let us know, I am sure we all can provide you with specific links to hundreds of blogs by soldiers and Iraqis.
No offense ST, not trying to tell people to leave your site, just informing them if they want it from the horses mouth, go to the horse not the horse’s ass (MSM, NYT, LAT, ect). Meaning if you want to hear what the soldiers say, get it from them, it is already well known that the MSM will chop and use bits and pieces of the words of soldiers to make the MSM point and not the soldiers point. If you need a link to that, I can help there too if you want. Take a look at the MSM quoting of a soldiers letter back to his wife, they only posted part of it, and not the end of it and made it seem like he was against the war, ect. MSM makes me so sick sometimes, I get the majority of my news from a variety fo blogs, most times they are more accurate than the MSM and quicker to let me and others know when they have made a mistake (not burying the mistake or retractions on page 34 in the obituary section).
Sorry, got side tracked, but the gist of it is, you want to know what the soldiers need and think? Read the MIL blogs. You want to know what the Iraqi’s think? Read the Iraqi Blogs.
Don’t assume from armchair quarterbacks in Washington that think they can reda a report and say WE NEED MORE TROOPS. I would rather take the word of the soldiers and the people in charge over in Iraq than those who sit back in Washington behind a cushy desk and decide from there.
Okay, I need to stop this and ask a question that has been bothering me..Brian said; It is against the law for a general on active duty to call the President of the United States a liar. – is it really? And secondly, isn’t it against the military laws for a reservist soldier, say like Kerry, to meet with the enemy? And aren’t there laws about our senators and congress people also calling the POTUS a liar? I am just kind of curious.
It’s not against the law. It’s against the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).
However, 2 points:
1)General Tommy Franks has since retired and relayed that the second point is true!
2) The second point is that Bush has said more than 10 times including in debates with John Kerry that he has given the generals the # of troops they asked for.
3rd, what is the Democrats point. They want it BOTH ways. They criticize the president for not listening to John McCain and a general not in the field because they want more troops. They also criticize the president for being in Iraq and want the troops to start withdrawing.
They have no coherent plan and want to criticize the president for having no plan (even thousgh he does have a plan and he’s sticking to it).
And THEN as icing on the cake, if anyone ever engages one of their criticisms they are said to:
1) be silencing the critics (or wanting to silence the critics)
2) Be calling the criticizer unpatriotic
3) be a chickenhawk.
Check out the irresponsible media in this story People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq,” Bush said, three days after agreeing with Vice President Dick Cheney that the critics were “reprehensible.
Cheney didn’t call the critics “reprehensible”. He called their calls for immediate withdrawal “reprehensible”
I heard Cheney’s words a couple of times. The media shouldn’t be allowed with making news. They should report exactly what was said instead of making erroneous interpretations.
They are doing it on the $50 billion dollar CUTS in social services. The media isn’t reporting the truth. The social services that are being looked at WERE going to increase 7.9% and now I think the number is 7.1% or 7.4%. That isn’t a cut.
Sorry I went off topic ST!
Lorica,
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Army had a plan for invading Iraq, which called for the use of 400,000 troops, which they felt was needed to be able to occupy a country of Iraq’s size and population. LINK
Donald Rumsfeld did away with this plan and instead decided to use a much smaller force. His entire plan was based on the premise that Iraqis would welcome us with open arms. There were no plans for dealing with an insurgency or bringing stability to Iraq. We are paying the price for those poor decisions now.
There is an insurrection going on in Iraq with large numbers of Iraqi insurgents. There are large numbers of ex-Iraq Army officers and Bathist insurgents as a result of the Bush Administrations flawed policies. After the U.S. military took over Iraq, the Bush Administration decided to dismantle the Iraq Army throwing hundreds of thousands of well-trained fighters out of work. The administration also decided to over 100,000 former members of the Bath regime out of work which also turned many Iraqi people against the U.S..
Besides the Iraqi insurgents there are also many foreign fighters who have entered Iraq to attack American forces and Iraqi civilians. Even more than two years since the U.S. took over Iraq, foreign fighters are still entering the country because the U.S. did not send in enough troops to secure Iraq’s borders.
Regardless of whether or not it was the right decision to go to war with Iraq, President Bush and his administration have made one bad decision after another in planning and carrying out the war in Iraq.
Pam,
What is so bad in Iraq? It is now more than two years since we took over Iraq, and American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are still being killed on a regular basis by Iraqi insurgents and terrorists from other countries.
You asked if it is against the law for a general on active duty to call the President of the United States a liar.
Military law prohibits “contemptuous words” against the president and other political leaders.
LINK
Baklava..thanks! You answered my questions but I guess they were missed on the obvious target.:wink:
P.S. To your third point I will add that they want to cut the funding to the troops yet call for more troops to fight in the war. I would expect nothing more from a Democrat. I use my Tommy Franks book as a reference to alot of the topics! I take it you read it too!:smile: Great book for anyone that hasn’t read it!
Baklava..thanks! You answered my questions but I guess they were missed on the obvious target.:wink:
P.S. To your third point I will add that they want to cut the funding to the troops yet call for more troops to fight in the war. I would expect nothing more from a Democrat. I use my Tommy Franks book as a reference to alot of the topics! I take it you read it too!:smile: Great book for anyone that hasn’t read it!
Brian I don’t think they did. I think we have the exact numbers of troops we need. Not that I am blind but I am not hearing Cent Com yelling for more troops. Franks doesn’t ever say it, and he would know, not Shinseki in case you want to use him as a reference again. As far as your link goes. I care little for Shinseki, so you cannot impress me with anything he says. What next links to Wes Clark??
Iraq did greet us with open arms. I know I saw it on TV.
Ex-Military Bathist were going to die in trial anyway, so what do they have to lose by fighting. Not a good point when one is discussing “freedom fighters”, which is what real insurgents would be. Which these are not. We were finding Nazis for years after WWII, and yes those men fought too. Hell Israel is still searching for Nazis.
As far as watching the borders of Iraq. I doubt you could do it effectively with 400k men. After all thanks to some good Dems Sadamn had 18 months to prepare for this. Soooo this point is moot also.
Brian keep believing what you are reading but again I ask you. Why can you not enjoy the hope of a future that the Iraqi people have?? It was not so long ago that some Dems were saying that the Iraqi’s would never have an interim government, or a constitution. They now have both. Soon there will be a permenant government, and the leftist in this country will still be in denial. Seems to me you would want to give up a losing argument. Unless you are a Dem the plan seems to be working. Not perfectly, but it is working. – Lorica
Brian, that link was “wildly off the mark” (you should recognize those words). That was pure opinion and left wing analysis. That isn’t NEWS.
First 4 paragraphs were speculation without recognition that the military and pentagon had in writing MANY plans for the Iraq invasion.
This guy talks as if there was one. That wasn’t the truth.
The guy also exaggerated what Shinseki’s true estimate was. It was “several hundred thousand” That could mean anywhere from 250,000 to 350,000. But the writer said 400,000 conveniently.
He went on to say that Wolfowitz saying, “recent estimates were wildly off the mark” was a public rebuking of Shinseki. Just like calling Murtha’s plan reprehensible was calling Murtha names. What do you call the left’s treatment of Bush? Public Rebuking? oh.. the double standard..
Before I quit let’s look at these assinine paragraphs:
As the looting breaks out, U.S. troops don’t do anything. Explain what happened.
One of the many elements of the Iraqi conundrum that will take a long time fully to explain, I think, is why there were no orders to prevent the looting. It was harder than it might have been, simply because the U.S. troop levels were lower than they might otherwise have beenLET’S NOT BLAME THE LOOTERS LIKE IN NEW ORLEANS, LET’S BLAME THE LEVEL OF TROOPS EVEN THOUGH THERE WERE CLEARLY ENOUGH TROOPS IN THE PICTURES I SAW, and the northern frontier was not secured. But clearly, even the troops that were on hand could have had different orders. … So why exactly there were no orders to prevent looting is still not known.
One background factor, however, is that in the month or two before the war, there was a view of the administration that occupying powers have certain responsibilities to impose order, but we were not going to be an occupying power. This was a liberating armySTILL IS ONE – THEY ARE LIBERATED!, so this sort of thing was not our responsibility.
Is one of the main problems of all this that one of the expectations of the Pentagon or Rumsfeld was that the Iraqi military units would surrender, and then we would use them for security in such situations?
An assumption of almost all the postwar planning scenarios is that the Iraqi military, once its evil top layer had been peeled off, would be there for use as a security force, as happens in most nations after they’re occupied. The army first melted away, and then was sort of decommissioned by Ambassador Bremer. So all that manpower wasn’t available to the U.S. and was at large with weapons.
What were the long-term consequences of the looting, the chaos?
The immediate tangible consequences were to make a mockery of the precision bombing campaign the U.S. had actually carried out. I forget the actual statistic, but something like 10 times as much of the power grid was destroyed in the couple of weeks after the war as was destroyed by U.S. bombing during the war. The bombing had been very careful; the looting was very indiscriminate. So all the things that were going wrong then, in terms of hospitals being stripped bare, schools not being able to run, no electric power — that was from the looting, not from the war WE SHOULD PUBLISH THAT FACT EVERY DAY FOR OVER 100 YEARS SO THAT PEOPLE WOULD LEARN COMMON SENSE – IN THE LA RIOTS OF 1992 AND THE AFTERMATH OF IRAQ BEING LIBERATED – YOU IDIOTS DESTROYED YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD /YOUR FUTURE – WE HAD TO COME IN AT GREAT EXPENSE AND REBUILD WHAT YOU TORE DOWN.
Let me just quickly say that I wan’t shouting. I was just distinguishing what the person without common sense wrote for opinion versus what I wrote.
Let me also say that after we gained freedom here in CA from Gray Davis, NONE of my friends nor I went out and looted hospitals and schools or broke down the energy grid (or burned cars ala France). I would never think that any of those actions would help my future!
- The moonbats are scared [expletive deleted] that the war in Iraq will be a success, and once again they’ll be caught on the short end of the stick. So the Bush-delusional yammer on about the need to build up the ligitimate Iraqui forces while drawing down our own as soon as possible. Precisely what we’ve been doing all along….
- Sorry KosKiddies. No cigar. Late entries, Xeroxed copies at that, will not be considered as a viable substitute for what passes as “elitist thinking” these days….
- The Dems have only one workable option – get any kind of social plan, drop the rabid “get Bush” campaign, and break the stranglehold of the extreme left on their party or they face even more years as “howling dogs” in the political wilderness……
Bang, The war in Iraq is a success. Here is yet another story that the MSM will gloss over.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2005/20051118_3381.html
We are finding weapons caches like this just like all that cash. Sadamn liked to bury stuff. From what I heard in an interview with one of the weapons inspectors, Sadamn had over 50 square miles of weapons depots. That’s alot of acreage. – Lorica
Lorica,
There wasn’t a single American soldier killed by insurgents in Germany after World War II even though the Germans had over three years to prepare for it There have been over a thousand Americans killed and probably over 10,000 wounded since President Bush declared victory in Iraq. Do you really think this is the best we could do? How bad would things have to get before you would consider things to be going badly? Does it matter to you that over 1,000 American troops have been killed after the Iraqi Army was defeated? What is your basis for saying that 400,000 troops wouldn’t be enough to control the border? Do you really think that 400,000 troops couldn’t do a better job of bringing stability to Iraq and securing the borders than 150,000 could? I think you’re the one that is in denial.
Baklava,
It seems that no matter what mistakes were made in Iraq, you’re going to defend the Bush administration unconditionally. Do you really think that things in Iraq are going as well as they possibly could? Do you really think that our military couldn’t have done any better than this?
If you are comparing a governor losing an election to a dictator being overthrown after an invasion by another country, you’re the one that doesn’t have common sense.
Brian lied with this accusation, “you’re going to defend the Bush administration unconditionally
I think I’ve said over 100 times that your false accusations aren’t true and there are plenty of things that you as a mistake obsessed person (including making them yourself) could outline if you wished to in a time of war. There were mistakes in every war Brian. There were 5 innocents killed by our soldiers just yesterday. There were plenty of mistakes committed by the 4 presidents who oversaw Vietnam. Plenty during WW2. Your problem is that you are obsessed instead of seeing the big picture. You sound like (I’m not sure) you are ready to impeach the president for beeing imperfect (your pattern of moving the goalposts again).
Brian asked a question with a false premise (don’t you get tired of writing things that are false?), “Do you really think that things in Iraq are going as well as they possibly could?
I never said that Brian! In fact, I think I’ve said more than 10 times that the liberals and their rhetoric are the reason that the “insurgents” have so much initiative and energy. And… I’ve said that we’ve been too “nice” during this war. Nicer than any other war and you laughed at my perspective. Then with lack of focus you act like I think things are hunky dory.
Your last paragraph shows you missed the point (got it wrong again:roll
. My point was, “I would never think that any of those actions would help my future! The actions I was talking about was looting hospitals and schools and burning buildings and cars. That’s a message that the press doesn’t get and it seems you don’t get because it was contained in the article you linked. The blame lies entirely/squarely on the looters for the situation they are in (always). Everytime!
LOL Ohhh Brian, this coming from the person that insists there are no WMDs in Iraq, even tho you have been proven wrong.
I said that 400K would do you no good because Sadamn Hussein had so much time to prepare in our “rush to war”. Also that many troops would not do well as then you would have an occupying force of troops. You might then have to put down a true insurgency. Not this mock thing that idiots from the MSM have created.
But like usual Brian you are wrong. We did lose men post WW2.
U.S. Army Center of Military History shows that at least 39 combat deaths occurred in the first few months of the occupation.
Here is the link so you don’t have to take my word on it. http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092303d.cfm
Lastly. I don’t AT ALL take to you questioning my concern for the deaths of American soldiers. DO YOU understand me Sir. It is the same quotes you use that are be replayed on Al-Jazeera to incite violence toward our troops. But yet you insist you are only concerned about the troops. You are the person that REFUSES to have a hope for a future. You hang on to the same old tired arguments that have been proven wrong over and over again. I would like to personally thank you for proving so many of my points and reinforcing my belief that conservatism is the only right thinking. YOU NEVER answer a single question you just try to deflect constantly with your BS. But to accuse me of having no concern for our troops is below the belt. – Lorica
10,000 Troops died in Germany during the 10 year “OCCUPATION”.