More of Bush’s lies, and “Sixteen Words”

[Nyuck3X]

Quote from Mitch Saret:

Next, everyone who has focused on WMD's is missing the point of the action. Sure, WMD's were a part of it, but one of several reasons for going. Regime change, liberation of an oppressed people (like Bosnia, Somalia, etc.), ties to terroist groups, and more, through out the last 14 months or more and each reason was the focus of a different speech.

The problem here is, it was supposed to be a "pre-emptive strike".
Pre-emptive suggest stopping something before it starts.
Everything you described was already happening. That would be called
an intervening strike.

The White House cannot admit to lying because that was the whole
crux of the Clinton impeachment. If it's established that he lied
during his duty, he could theoretically be impeached.

One side plays to one set of rules, then when it gets into office,
it changes the rules again. Example: Clinton on smoking pot,
"I didn't inhale." George Jr. on cocaine use, "next question..."
He never really addressed the subject and no one pushes it.
Curious George doesn't answer half the questions asked. He always
dishes out a red herring and avoids the issue.

[Mitch Saret]

How many of them are dying every day?

That is a good question and I wish I had the answer. We have seen reports of Brtish troops being killed, but no others.

The reason the White House hasn't stood by the comment is that it has become evident that "somebody" in the administration knew that those words were based on false intelligence before the State of the Union Address..who knew, and how far up it goes continues to unravel

Where is it false? The statement was British intelligence has learned...the British still stand by the intelligence. What is incorrect about the statement?

The problem here is, it was supposed to be a "pre-emptive strike".

Actually, it has been termed a resumption of hostilities in a response to failure to abide by the terms of the cessation of them. Pre-emptive is the term that has been used by opponents of the war saying it has never been done before. And if you think that there is a terrorist connection then it is a continuation of the war o terror which was unanimously approved.

The White House cannot admit to lying because that was the whole crux of the Clinton impeachment. If it's established that he lied during his duty, he could theoretically be impeached.

I think the difference was Clinton lied under oath during a court proceeding earning him a perjury charge, contempt of court charge, and removal of his law license for a few years. Hardly comparing apples and apples.

While I agree that some of the things elder has come up with are lies that we should be concerned about, these 16 words have yet to be shown as a lie. I believe WMD's will be found. I believe there is a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Even when I was in service, in the early 80's, when Iran and Iraq were at war and we were helping Iraq, we heard talk of how someday we would have to "take care of that problem someday." Now it seems as though Iran is trying to be our friend. If one thing is for sure, particularly in that part of the world, it's that nothing stays the same.

Originally posted by Mitch Saret
Next, everyone who has focused on WMD's is missing the point of the action. Sure, WMD's were a part of it, but one of several reasons for going. Regime change, liberation of an oppressed people (like Bosnia, Somalia, etc.), ties to terroist groups, and more, through out the last 14 months or more and each reason was the focus of a different speech.

The point is that there was a UN mandate for the removal of WMD - and that mandate could be (and was) used to justify military action under international law. There was no mandate for any of the other stuff, and initiating a conflict without UN backing is illegal. Hence all the emphasis on WMD in the run-up to the war, and hence the reason Tony Blair is so desperately clinging on to that issue. US public opinion would forgive Bush for fighting an illegal war in Iraq under false pretenses - the British public (who were largely against the conflict from the outset) would not.

I'm still really surprised that Bush hasn't helped his buddy Tony out by making sure some stockpiles of chemical agents were "found" somewhere in Iraq. I'm sure suitable "evidence" could be presented to the world media if the administration really thought WMD were a big deal.

Cheers,

Mike

[larsen_huw]

President Bush may be a moron (i beleive that is someone with an IQ of below 85, something a phycology student told me ... dunno if it's accurate?), but he seems to have surounded himself with some very clever advisors. I personaly see him as an announcer type puppet for his advisors.

I question i would like to know the answer to is: is he clever enough to know when he's being manipulated into saying what his advisors want?

[L-Fitzgerald]

In response to the question: "are you saying Bush is wise." I was not speaking of George Bush, but the disbarred lawyer from Arkansas, and give very little credence to any comments he makes. My point was that even with his "notable" education the man decided to be known in history as a skirt chaser, not unlike the man he so admired and met in the White House many years ago.

And in closing I must admit that I often forget how quickly political discussions meaningless diatribe mumbled by the masses that don't have a clue.........

[elder999]

Originally posted by L-Fitzgerald
In response to the question: "are you saying Bush is wise." I was not speaking of George Bush, but the disbarred lawyer from Arkansas, and give very little credence to any comments he makes. My point was that even with his "notable" education the man decided to be known in history as a skirt chaser, not unlike the man he so admired and met in the White House many years ago.

And in closing I must admit that I often forget how quickly political discussions meaningless diatribe mumbled by the masses that don't have a clue.........

Since you keep bringing up the pardon Clinton received from Jimmy Carter for draft evasion, should we get into Bush's lies about waht he did before he was President?
I was talking about Bush. The disbarred lawyer from Arkansas has, as you have pretty much stated, been relegated to history and the lecture circuit.Since you mentioned Kennedy as well,we could just as easily mention the peccadillos and foibles of each President-Eisenhower's affair, Roosevelt's as well, Wilson's racism, back to Jefferson(affair, and misegenation-oh, the horror!)

Presidents have always been human-and fallible.


We were speaking of Mr. Bush's humanity (or lack thereof) and failings, about which I am far from clueless.

[Ben Bartlett]

On the uranium issue, the fact that it was a lie or misstatement (whichever you prefer) revolves around the fact of the use of the word "learned" as opposed to "claimed", and the fact that the CIA had already informed the White House (and British Intelligence) that any claims of Iraq attempting to buy uranium from Africa were highly suspect.

Of course, the bigger lie that's been missed in all of this is the supposed Al-Qaida connection to Iraq, which was always a rather dubious claim, and which more and more evidence shows never actually existed. If anything, that's the claim most likely to come back to haunt the administration.

That said, it will be interesting to see where the fault for the uranium claim ultimately lies. Odds are, it's going to either end up in the lap of Rice or Cheney, as Rice is in charge of the NSC, and the request to review the Niger documents came from Cheney. What Bush has to worry about is not that he'll end up looking like a liar (as I don't think he ever did have knowledge that the uranium claims were false), but a fool who was easily manipulated by his advisers. That may sound like a long shot, but remember, that was one of the concerns about him back when he was first running for President. Anything that confirmed that fear could be deadly, politically speaking. What puts him in worse shape is there's a lot of bad blood between the CIA and the White House, as the former feels though the latter pushed them to produce intelligence they didn't feel was credible, and so we can expect to see further leaks from various members of the CIA about who in the administration did what.

Bush may manage to survive all this, of course, if he has enough political savvy. But some heads in the administration are almost certain to roll.

[L-Fitzgerald]

At the risk of repeating myself:

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Originally posted by L-Fitzgerald:
It seems quite apparent that you really don't like him at all?
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[elder999]

Originally posted by L-Fitzgerald
At the risk of repeating myself:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by L-Fitzgerald:
It seems quite apparent that you really don't like him at all?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

And your point is??

I certainly don't bear Mr. Bush any personal animosity. I don't, as some others on this board have said, think he's evil-as much as I think he's stupid.

It's his policies I don't like, and his lies-not just the fact of them, but the quality and quantity of them.

[L-Fitzgerald]

I simply made an observation, and minor comparison to others that have gone before him. And although, according to some he is stupid and a liar, there is one quality no one seems to want to acknowledge in that he doesn't fit the mold of past presidents [his father is also excluded]in that he doesn't "cat" around.

As for the war, I'm not thrilled with the fact that we've gotten rid of an extremely unenlighted despot, and his two lunatic sons, and our soldiers are still being killed, but consider this: where we would be if Saddam had been allowed to continue, and had later managed to hook up with the man running North Korea?"

It seems that the UN is the paper tiger of the world, but it is the President is being taken to task for having the courage to remove a mad man from power after more than a dozen UN resolutions were ignored. And this president used the same reasons cited by the previous administration to act, and instead of just bombing an aspirin factory decided that it was reaching a point where no action could possibly have cost more lives than just those lost on 9-11.

[Ben Bartlett]

Originally posted by L-Fitzgerald

As for the war, I'm not thrilled with the fact that we've gotten rid of an extremely unenlighted despot, and his two lunatic sons, and our soldiers are still being killed, but consider this: where we would be if Saddam had been allowed to continue, and had later managed to hook up with the man running North Korea?"

Well, first, there's a bit of silly speculation here, in that there's no evidence whatsoever that Iraq and North Korea were interested in forming any sort of alliance. Second, there's no question Iraq was a problem, but it was a problem that intelligence estimates showed we actually had about 5 years to deal with. That means we could've given the weapons inspectors a year like they asked, built up some more international support, and, most importantly, taken some time to come up with a good post-war strategy for rebuilding Iraq. Basically, what we had was a rush job (which would've been fine if there actually had been some sort of imminent threat, but there wasn't).

What's worse, we've been ignoring North Korea, where there really is an imminent threat. Not to mention there are still ongoing problems in Afghanistan that need to be dealt with (and we still need to finish tracking down bin Laden). And we could've spent more of the money we're spending in Iraq on our national security while we were at it.

At any rate, it's not that Iraq wasn't a problem. It's just that it was a very hyped-up problem, and shouldn't have taken the priority it did. Bush was correct in dealing with it, but he dealt with it in a relatively poor way, while ignoring more important threats.

[elder999]

Originally posted by L-Fitzgerald
I simply made an observation, and minor comparison to others that have gone before him. And although, according to some he is stupid and a liar, there is one quality no one seems to want to acknowledge in that he doesn't fit the mold of past presidents [his father is also excluded]in that he doesn't "cat" around.

Well, we don't know that he doesn't "cat" around, now do we?
Maybe he just gets away with it better, for now.
Maybe he and the wife have an "understanding."

What difference does it make? If he did he would be in good company:Roosevelt, Eisenhower,Kennedy and Jefferson all had mistresses.

I'll acknowledge that he doesn't. Good for him and the Mrs.
I don't either, nor do I lie, and I'm not President.

As for the war, I'm not thrilled with the fact that we've gotten rid of an extremely unenlighted despot, and his two lunatic sons, and our soldiers are still being killed, but consider this: where we would be if Saddam had been allowed to continue, and had later managed to hook up with the man running North Korea?"

This has nothing to do with my feelings about the war; hell, I was in favor of finishing off Saddam before 9-11. This isn't even about his lying-all Presidents and politicians have been guilty of one sort of lie or another. This is about accountability. As pPResident, he should come forward and shoulder the blame for what was said in his speech, instead of "blaming" the British, Condoleeza Rice, the CIA and anyone else. He should say it was his mistake, and move on.

It seems that the UN is the paper tiger of the world, but it is the President is being taken to task for having the courage to remove a mad man from power after more than a dozen UN resolutions were ignored. And this president used the same reasons cited by the previous administration to act, and instead of just bombing an aspirin factory decided that it was reaching a point where no action could possibly have cost more lives than just those lost on 9-11.

Again, this isn't about the reasons or necessity of removing Saddam,
or the mess of the war's aftermath. I agree with you about the U.N., and then some. History will show whether or not the invasion of Iraq was a good thing;I still think it was, though it may prove to be more of a mess than anyone anticipated.

This president has acted decisively, but he has also told numerous lies, and his domestic policies are a mess-an equally decisive mess that shows no regard for the American public, the middle class, the working poor, the environment or the economy.

Of course, we're at war, so I shouldn't care about those things, or his lies, huh?

[L-Fitzgerald]

I cannot recall the wording of the last UN resolution, but wasn't Saddam given a specific deadline [after more than 12 other UN Mandates had been ignored] to comply, and was not in fact complying, regardless of what Hans Blix said. As a result of the war Saddam and his cronies were proven to have been playing a shell game with the Inspectors down to the point of monitoring their radio frequencies, and knowing of their itinerary before the Inspectors left their compounds.

I read and hear news reports about how the UN is up in arms about the genocide that is taking place in Africa, but not one word of the genocide Saddam implemented against his own people.....

To quote a movie line......."the evil has been demolished" Amen and Thank God for that....

[elder999]

Originally posted by L-Fitzgerald
I cannot recall the wording of the last UN resolution, but wasn't Saddam given a specific deadline [after more than 12 other UN Mandates had been ignored] to comply, and was not in fact complying, regardless of what Hans Blix said. As a result of the war Saddam and his cronies were proven to have been playing a shell game with the Inspectors down to the point of monitoring their radio frequencies, and knowing of their itinerary before the Inspectors left their compounds.

I read and hear news reports about how the UN is up in arms about the genocide that is taking place in Africa, but not one word of the genocide Saddam implemented against his own people.....

To quote a movie line......."the evil has been demolished" Amen and Thank God for that....

Yeah, but Bush is still a liar-and he'll let someone take the blame for it,instead of doing what's right.

[L-Fitzgerald]

Ah yes, your are correct its a shame that in the rather short history of our Republic he is the first President that has told the American public a lie!