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Banned
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Originally Posted by powerclown
Grandstanding. That's it.
PlameGate? Grandstanding.
End of Story.
Why?
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Why
What the Democrats had to say about Iraq (pre-election):
Pre-Election Gore
Post-Election Gore
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So the pablum that "Bush Lied, People Died" (C) *must* be wrong.
Either EVERYONE was wrong about Iraq, or EVERYONE was right about Iraq.
It's dishonest to put this soley on Bush.
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powerclown,
Mr. Pitt speaks for me in the excerpt from his recent commentary. Please direct me to a comparable example of even handed examination of mistakes that republican political leaders have made, or where demands were made to admit and apologize for mistakes?
Someone posted the question of whether it is worse to follow the leaders who deliberately deceived or the ones who were foolish enough to let themselves be deceived. I'll vote for the ones (if any emerge) who admit that they were wrong, offer apologies, and accept whatever consequences that their earlier, flawed decisions, subject them to, in the interests of justice, fairness, and resititution. I'll vote for the ones who voted against the authorization for war and actively voiced opposition to it. Who sir, will you vote for?
Quote:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110305I.shtml
It's Still There
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 03 November 2005
....... How did we get here? The answer to this comes in three parts. Of course, we got here because the Bush administration lied with its bare face hanging out about the threat posed by Iraq. Recall, if you will, these gems:
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." - George W. Bush, Radio Address, 10/5/2002
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, Ohio Speech, 10/7/2002
"We know for a fact that there are weapons there." - Ari Fleischer, Press Briefing, 1/9/2003
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." - Colin Powell, Remarks to UN Security Council, 2/5/2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." - George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, 3/17/2003
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." - Donald Rumsfeld, ABC Interview, 3/30/2003
"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." - George W. Bush, Interview with TVP Poland, 5/30/2003
There are, literally, dozens more comments and declarations exactly like this. The best one, after that magically deranged comment from Bush claiming we actually found the stuff, came from Ari Fleischer on July 9, 2003, as he attempted to fend off questions about why no WMD had been located. "I think the burden," said Fleischer while channeling Orwell, "is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."
Here's the funny part: Senator Kit Bond, Republican of Missouri, apparently spent a portion of Tuesday assuring people that the weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq, and that we would find them. Yes, this was Tuesday. Not last year or two years ago. Tuesday. Methinks someone missed a memo somewhere.
Right. So that's the easy part. They lied, repeatedly and with deliberate intent. They used the fears created by September 11 against the American people to get the war they wanted, to get the payday they wanted for their friends, to make sure they had a dead-bang winner of an issue to run on in the 2002 midterms. This administration has admitted no fault, made no steps to rectify the mess they have created, and appears willing to slog on indefinitely. This is, in the end, not at all surprising. Getting them to admit fault is almost certainly impossible.
There are others in this, however, who must also admit fault and come completely clean. Bush and his folks were not alone in this.
Senator Reid's strong stand on Tuesday cannot obscure the fact that he, along with Democratic Senators Lincoln, Feinstein, Dodd, Lieberman, Biden, Carper, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Cleland, Miller, Bayh, Harkin, Breaux, Landrieu, Kerry, Carnahan, Baucus, Torricelli, Clinton, Schumer, Edwards, Dorgan, Hollings, Daschle, Johnson, Cantwell, Rockefeller and Kohl all voted to support the Iraq War Resolution in October of 2002. 21 Democrats, led by Senator Byrd and joined by Independent Senator Jeffords, voted no on the IWR. The only Republican to join them in voting "No" was Lincoln Chafee.
Reid gave the Republican Congress a good tongue-lashing on Tuesday, one that was richly deserved. Yet the Democrats who got behind this thing in the first place have not come close to absolving themselves of their responsibility for what has taken place. "We were misled," goes the Democratic refrain these days. "We were tricked. We were duped." Perhaps this is true. Those who believe it argue the point well enough, and add this bit: these Senators trusted Bush; they refused to believe he would send young men and women to die based on lies.
This may be true, but I struggle with that explanation. I wrote a book in August of 2002, two full months before the Iraq War Resolution vote and seven months before the invasion, called "War on Iraq." The book stated unequivocally that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no ties to Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda or 9/11, and thus no reason to go to war there. This book was subsequently translated into twelve languages and read all over the world. A copy was delivered to each and every member of the Senate.
If I knew this - me, wee little me - then how is it possible that all these Senators allowed themselves to be "tricked?" The answer to this is difficult. Did these Senators fall victim to a Pollyanna belief that Bush wouldn't deceive the country? Or were their actions motivated by political ugliness of the purest ray serene: the midterms were around the corner, a Presidential election was coming, a bunch of these Senators wanted to run for that office, and voting to approve the war was the most politically expedient option at the time.
Were they duped, or did they vote to protect their jobs and their positions and their aspirations? At least one Senator - Barbara Boxer - voted no because she read the National Intelligence Estimate, heard the dissenting opinions from the State Department, and decided the information coming from the White House did not jibe with the facts. If she got it right, how did the others fail to do so?
Whichever explanation may be true, these Senators allowed Bush to throw thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians to the wolves. Reid's actions on Tuesday, strong as they were, are not sufficient. The Democrats who empowered the White House to undertake this invasion must apologize to the country and to the world. Either they were duped, or else they went along for the ride. Neither is acceptable. If they are going to fix the mess, the first step they must take is to admit their own complicity. Until they do, the stain of their failure will remain........
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