Tex

Apparently this story first started circulating a little more than a week ago, but the American media has been completely silent. It also seems like 88 congressmen have been circulating a letter asking Bush to respond to memo, but the administration has failed to say a word.

Why isn't this a bigger story here?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...593607,00.html
..And for those who believe that we needed to take out Saddam to because he was an evil man..
The Chicago Tribune has been the only American source I've been able to find that has even mentioned the story...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/servic...ered.intercept

__________________
"All I know is that I know nothing..."

host

Tex, I have posted about the Blair secret memo twice, recently:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...mo#post1774882

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...mo#post1777180

Maybe highlighting this "smoking gun". they way you chose to, will generate some responses. IMO, those who are open to the process of discovering what Bush and his administration knew and premeditated regarding Iraqi WMD and the invasion of Iraq, vs. what they said to the world, have probably received enough info to form an opinion. Those who support the "massive intelligence failure" that misled our president into going to war, but it is still the right thing because a "vicious dictator who gassed his own people" has been removed, and America has brought the gift of freedom to the Iraqi people, explanation from this administration, will ignore or not be swayed by the secret memo's contents.

guthmund

Well, there are so much more important things to worry about like the Michael Jackson Trial with regular breaks to update us on the Runaway Bride situation.

To paraphrase Lewis Black, when the so-called fourth estate covers the superficial when the substantial is staring them in the face, it's a wonder, we as a people, don't rise up and slay them.

There's certainly more to say, but I recall seeing a copy of the letter signed by a number of Congressmen and Congresswomen (the only one I remember is Barney Frank...) addressed to President Bush. I want to find that before I say anything else.

__________________
No signature. None. Seriously.

Seaver

Maybe instead of constantly posting inflammitory posts about those of us who support the war (still), trying to truely understand why we do.

I personally dont care how they justified the war. It's justified in my opinion simply because the good will outnumber the bad. You screaming at us about how there were lies, how he was oil hungry, how whatever else doesnt sway me. Not because I dont believe it, but because I dont care. The Iraqi people will be much better off at the end of this, and I believe they will look on us as we look on FDR doing shady things to attempt to provolk us into war with Germany. Most wont have a problem with it because hindsight grants clarity of vision. I'll let history judge my stance on it, not you.

powerclown

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

hrandani

Well thank God you have been blessed with the powers of prophecy, Seaver.

Explain to me how you think you know that the Iraqi people will be better off from this.

Try explaining that to the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. I'm sure they'll give you an enthusiastic response. The thing is you are imposing your own Western philosophies on people who aren't Western.

It may seem wrong to you that there are so many terrorists actively fighting against the United States military in Iraq, but I don't see you or anybody else I know rolling over in the case of an active invasion onto our soil.

The simple fact is, members of the current administration and their friends are making money off of our dead, and the dead Iraqis.

Our boys are dying in the streets of Iraq, some due to lack of body armor, for oil, money and a war president.

The fact is, there is scant evidence that September 11th was orchestrated by the Middle East, and there is no evidence it was done by Iraq. And the hypocrisy will continue until each and every one of the hundreds of third world despots are brought to justice. You don't see that happening in Africa when THOUSANDS were slaughtered, and I don't see that being the case in Kuwait 15 years ago.

North Korea has shown evidence they have nuclear weapons, and are launching missles into the sea of Japan. Now, I'm just going to throw this out here, but can you imagine if Iraq had done that?

Yet they didn't. And yet here we are, spending 300 000 000 dollars to private interests for a base in the middle east to expand our imperial domain. And I don't see anybody shocked as to the amount of oil in this country, either.

So to recap, many Iraqi civilians are dead and dying while others enjoy the same amount of power (talking kilowatts here) as in the Saddam era (Where's the beef, Halliburton?), and far less peace.

Mission Accomplished

DoubleK

No, you're right.

Genocidal dictatorships are better for the people.

Locobot

There have been threads about this already...I'm sure we'll get a forthcoming response from the president...

guy44

Seaver, I'm not going to argue the merits of going to war in Iraq. That's for another thread. You may be right, you may be wrong. It is irrelevant.

Because the point of this story is that Bush and Blair intentionally lied to their respective countries in order to gather enough support to allow them to start a war. Think about that. Two individuals were able to start a war by concocting a series of lies. Is this how our democracy works? That our Presidents get to start any war they want, as long as they can lie successfully at the outset to generate sufficient support?

If Bush had told the truth about Iraq, made a fair case, and then asked the American people and Congress to give him the authority to start this war, then things would be different. If he told the truth, and Americans still decided to support the war, then things would be different.

But that didn't happen. Bush lied to the American public in order to drum up support for a war he desired for other reasons. One individual decided he wanted to go to war, and bamboozled most of the country into supporting him. My God. This is what matters, Seaver.

And yes, I already started an earlier thread on this post: link.

__________________
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Elphaba

Congress's letter to the President was leaked last weekend. You can find it here:

http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democ...emoltr5505.pdf

Doc Hastings (R-WA) signed it, so this isn't just the dems diddling the pres.

Lebell

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Seaver

WOW... so many differing attacks thrown blindly into the night.

1) Because my friends are over there. They tell me constantly how glad MOST Iraqis are about us being there. They tell me how every single week at least one mother would tell them stories about how one day their child did not come home for innumeral different reasons. They tell me how Iraqis have pride once again in their country, and how they openly cried when casting their ballot.

2) The death of the Iraqis is extrememly unfortunate. But I'm willing to bet that the death of a few will prevent the death of many more. Look up the death tolls after the infandata.

3) Little evidence? Al Quaeda admitted it was them.

4) North Korea claims to have nuclear weapons, yet I have not seen, nor has anyone seen any evidence that they have one working. The seismic waves they cause are heard around the world, so it's no coverup. There has been one very large explosion but they did not have the double-wave of a nuclear (initial blast required to super-condense the nuclear material).

5) I think we should have immediately stopped the slaughters taken place in Africa. Both Bush and Clinton have the blood of millions on their hands because of that, and it makes me sick.

And please dont act like you care more about the troops than me. I have many friends over there, many of whom have been injured. Every single one of them fully supports this war because they see the truth in what is going on. While not all the troops like the war, there is always the full spectrum, I'm willing to trust them before any news journalist with an adjenda.

Elphaba

More media sources are chiming in on the lack of media attention:


http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2511

MEDIA ADVISORY:
Smoking Gun Memo?
Iraq Bombshell Goes Mostly Unreported in US Media

May 10, 2005

Journalists typically condemn attempts to force their colleagues to disclose
anonymous sources, saying that subpoenaing reporters will discourage efforts
to expose government wrongdoing. But such warnings seem like mere
self-congratulation when clear evidence of wrongdoing emerges, with no
anonymous sources required-- and major news outlets virtually ignore it.

A leaked document that appeared in a British newspaper offered clear new
evidence that U.S. intelligence was shaped to support the drive for war.
Though the information rocked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election
campaign when it was revealed, it has received little attention in the U.S.
press.

The document, first revealed by the London Times (5/1/05), was the minutes of
a July 23, 2002 meeting in Blair's office with the prime minister's close
advisors. The meeting was held to discuss Bush administration policy on Iraq,
and the likelihood that Britain would support a U.S. invasion of Iraq. "It
seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if
the timing was not yet decided," the minutes state.

The minutes also recount a visit to Washington by Richard Dearlove, the head
of the British intelligence service MI6: "There was a perceptible shift in
attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove
Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and
WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

That last sentence is striking, to say the least, suggesting that the policy
of invading Iraq was determining what the Bush administration was presenting
as "facts" derived from intelligence. But it has provoked little media
follow-up in the United States. The most widely circulated story in the
mainstream press came from the Knight Ridder wire service (5/6/05), which
quoted an anonymous U.S. official saying the memo was ''an absolutely accurate
description of what transpired" during Dearlove's meetings in Washington.

Few other outlets have pursued the leaked memo's key charge that the "facts
were being fixed around the policy." The New York Times (5/2/05) offered a
passing mention, and the Charleston (W.V.) Gazette (5/5/05) wrote an editorial
about the memo and the Iraq War. A columnist for the Cox News Service
(5/8/05) also mentioned the memo, as did Molly Ivins (WorkingForChange.com,
5/10/05). Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler (5/8/05) noted that Post
readers had complained about the lack of reporting on the memo, but offered no
explanation for why the paper virtually ignored the story.

In a brief segment on hot topics in the blogosphere (5/6/05), CNN
correspondent Jackie Schechner reported that the memo was receiving attention
on various websites, where bloggers were "wondering why it's not getting more
coverage in the U.S. media." But acknowledging the lack of coverage hasn't
prompted much CNN coverage; the network mentioned the memo in two earlier
stories regarding its impact on Blair's political campaign (5/1/05, 5/2/05),
and on May 7, a short CNN item reported that 90 Congressional Democrats sent a
letter to the White House about the memo-- but neglected to mention the
possible manipulation of intelligence that was mentioned in the memo and the
Democrats' letter.

Salon columnist Joe Conason posed this question about the story:

"Are Americans so jaded about the deceptions perpetrated by our own government
to lead us into war in Iraq that we are no longer interested in fresh and
damning evidence of those lies? Or are the editors and producers who oversee
the American news industry simply too timid to report that proof on the
evening broadcasts and front pages?"

As far as the media are concerned, the answer to Conason's second question
would seem to be yes. A May 8 New York Times news article asserted that
"critics who accused the Bush administration of improperly using political
influence to shape intelligence assessments have, for the most part, failed to
make the charge stick." It's hard for charges to stick when major media are
determined to ignore the evidence behind them.

________________________________________________________________________

I wonder if journalists are afraid of being another Dan Rather if this document proves to be a forgery.

jbw97361

As i recall, everyone in the world agreed with our intelligence at the time. They just didnt see it as a threat to THEM.

Anywho, hindsight is definitely 20/20 and their is no point in moaning about Coulda Woulda Shoulda.

__________________
JBW

ObieX

I dunno about that, there were weapons inspector after weapons inspector saying there were NO weapons of mass destruction. Over and over and over NO weapons of mass destruction. Even right up to the war everyone but the US was saying there were NO weapons of mass destruction. The best we could come up with when Colin Powell went before the UN were some satelite photos of some trucks.. sitting in front of a few buildings or a few bunkers. In those trucks, buildings and bunkers could have been ANYTHING, yet magically we "knew" it was stuffed full of weapons of mass destruction. So we kill our way in there and find nothing and what do we hear? "err... the Russians took em! Yea, thats the ticket!" or the ever-popular "uhh... they must have.. took them into... syria... we should hit them next!"

There's every reason to whine about woulda coulda shoulda. This is why we have prisons and laws. So someone kills your mother on the street in cold blood... well.. woulda coulda shoulda. Someone orders the invasion of a country on fabricated "facts" and blatant lies, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people... well.. woulda coulda shoulda... the ones that survive will be better off, trust us!

Thats wrong. But you're slightly right.. the whining should change.. to action.

__________________
We Must Dissent.

Mojo_PeiPei

Hundreds of thousands of people now?

DoubleK

One hundred million, even.

Mayhaps, soon, a billion?

ObieX

Well i can't seem to find a count on # of Iraqi fighters and insurgents that have been killed. The civilian casualties are listed anywhere from 24,000 - 100,000. + Nearly 2000 coalition troops, + contractor deaths (200+), + the spain train bombing (which was caused because of the iraq war). So lets consider 24k-100k dead civilians, now try to imagine how many of our bullets/bombs/missles/etc ACTUALLY HIT THEIR TARGETS, and you can try to calculate the insurgent/iraqi fighter deaths. Lets say the US killed 2 "bad guys" for every civilian, that makes for ~50k - 200k "enemy" deaths.

When i say "people" i dont just mean civilians. I don't just mean coalition troops, and i dont just mean US troops. Unless you don't consider Iraqi fighters or "insurgents" people.

Edit: Keep in mind that these numbers are pretty old ones, and have most likely grown since. The numbers have not stopped rising and will only continue to mount up. How many more will satisfy?

__________________
We Must Dissent.

Seaver

The Spain train bombing was not caused by the Iraqi War. Those terrorists had been there LONG before that, and had probably recieved training prior to that.

Drawing a parallel of that is like claiming eating fruit made someone fat. While it's possible, it's more likely due to the fact he's been eating junkfood for the prior 10 years.

ObieX

I'm pretty sure the reason given for the bombing was an attempt to force spain out of iraq and/or effect the elections in a way that would push spain out of Iraq. Atleast thats what all the news agencies were blasting out, and it was certainly the effect.

Edit: and yea, im aware of the other reasons, there was more than one objective, however.

__________________
We Must Dissent.

Seaver

Obie, that was the justification for it. The terrorist network has been in Spain LONG before they entered the war. To say a group started to work for a goal in hindsight doesnt work.

They are using that as a justification for their existance, although they've been around long before it. Sorry if I dont buy their explaination. They see Spain as a previous Islamic territory, they want to see it go back to that. That was their goal when the unit started.

Lebell

Much Better!

THANK YOU!!

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Manx

I could have sworn that just after the Spain bombing, conservatives were nearly up in arms over how the Spainards were capitulating to terrorists by voting out the politicians who supported the war in Iraq.

Now, when the discussion is how many people have died as an affect of the Iraq war, the event is unrelated?

That seems rather convenient.

Seaver

You misunderstand me.

The terrorist group that did the bombing existed long before the Iraq war. Their goals of installing an Islamic government there were stated long before the Iraq war. What I was saying is them claiming their bombing was because of the Iraq war is foolhearty to believe. If I've been punching you in the face for 5 years, and then you suddenly key my car... does that justify me punching you the previous 5 years? No, it doesn't work like that.

roachboy

i do not understand your logic, seaver.
i do not see how you understand the relation between the two parts of your argument: that the group that carried out the bombings in the subways in spain might have existed prior to the iraq war means that there is no causal linkage between the bombings and the iraq war. are you saying that for there to have been a causal linkage, the group would have had to form itself after the war with the express intent of carrying out an action as a protest against the war?

but isn't your position like saying that the american military existed before the iraq war so what they do in iraq is not causally connected to the iraq war?
am i missing something?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

hrandani

Lebell, I've read the guidelines and I am not sure if I crossed the line, but I am trying to tone it down and be as civil as possible, and if I have offended anyone I apologize, as that is not my intent.

We all have friends over there, and I am not questioning your patriotism or anything of that kind. It's blind faith to assume that we are automatically making things better for the Iraqi people, and I am not willing to make that assumption. I question it not because I doubt its veracity but because I am not prepared to make the mistake of blind devotion to corruption. Iraq is not Vietnam, but in any war people fight, and people die. No one should make the mistake of disrespecting the fallen with assumptions.

There are soldiers who do not support this war, and there are soldiers who do support it. I've listened to deserters, objectors, wounded, and rabid supporters in the military. There is no consensus. There are Iraqis who may in public deride the previous government, but I question the ability of a soldier wearing the uniform of the United States military to ascertain any kind of truth. I vote, but I question the difference my vote makes, or has ever made. It really does not matter.

I am trying to keep an open mind, as much as that has been mocked by as many people as it has, and to you it seems to matter whether I am a journalist, or a soldier, or a student of history, or a twelve year old boy with a military legacy. It doesn't matter if I am the Commander of West Point or the President of the United States, because it doesn't make the truth any more readily available to me. I am attempting to understand this mess, and that is all.

Your third point is Al Qaeda admits it was them. Why do you trust a terrorist organization to tell us the truth? (Sure, it sounds ridiculous, but just think) All I am saying is there is no proof either way that it was or it was not Al Qaeda. If there is any proof, the Government of the United States of America is not willing to tell us. A passport from the plane that crashed into the WTC North Tower, and two highly disputed phone calls that reputedly took place from the plane that crashed into a field in Pennsylavania. That is the proof. And it has absolutely no connection with Iraq. None.

Any death is unfortunate, whether in Somalia or Iraq. There seems to be less and less caring now. I do not think it is a far leap to say we are in Iraq because of 9/11, and I just wonder why the deaths of 3 030 people on 9/11/01 is more momentous, more important, and a reason for the deaths of Iraqis, or as of today, 1 676 American soldiers.

For posterity, that number is 20 000 'tagged and bagged' and reported from morgues (iraqbodycount.com) and is by any criteria, an underestimate. The Lancet study did a statistical analysis based on 998 houses and projected it to the population, and arrived at 100 000 Iraqi civilians dead.

visual aid: http://www.infoshout.com/iraq%20death%20toll.htm

No one should sit down and say our dead take priority over their dead. We are all humans, and that is what I am afraid of forgetting in this madness.

hrandani

That wasn't what I said, or meant, and I find this kind of offensive.

You don't have to pick between extremes, or assume you must be a communist if not a neocon.

What is your point here? I gave my justification above and you dismiss it without consideration.

host

You both know about this:
You know that the Bush administration has admitted that there were no WMD in Iraq, as they described them in 2002 and in early 2003, and that they had no evidence that WMD were transferred out of Iraq.

Can either of you post your opinion on how high the resulting death count of an invasion and a war that was contrived under the circumstances described above: <h3>Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.</h3>?

Your posts, quoted above, lead me to suspect that neither of you is yet ready to consider the possibility that your president, and the PM of the UK, and high ranking civilian and military government officials in the U.S. and in the UK, should be investigated and tried for war crimes against humanity by an independent, interntaional, prosecutorial entity. That, however, is the sad, current state of affairs that Bush, Blair, et al, have put themselves, and us, in.
I answered your question here, Mojo_PeiPei :http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=10
I told you "how Bush is a war criminal". Is your reaction to split hairs with ObieX on the reported number of war related deaths in Iraq. I'll provide some more info on the number of deaths, but understand that the U.S. position when the Nazis were prosecuted was that the principle crime was initiating aggressive war and invasion against other jurisdictions for political purposes.
The developments today make a convincing argument that the US and UK have now done exactly that. If this is true, the war crimes accusations are valid, whether they result in one death or in a million.

Mojo_PeiPei

You can correctly say that the pretenses to the war were false, but you will have a hard time proving that Bush knowingly lied, you can assert it because it is a possibility. However if there isn't 100% certainty then you have a problem as far as accusing Bush of "war crimes" because the law of our land, the only law that matters in this case says Bush did nothing wrong. The constitution provides for "common defence" as such the President of the United States is allowed to act in good faith, which he did by getting a resolution passed through by congress authorizing force in the Iraq conflict. As far as international law goes, it's a joke, a joke which has no authority or force. It also seems in the current political scheme it is something that is arbitrarily enforced or referred on the whims of political necessity by various countries or groups of people.

DoubleK

There are still people citing the Lancet crapshoot?

DoubleK

On the contrary, it is exactly what you said.

"Explain to me how you think you know that the Iraqi people will be better off from this."

The two options you laid out there are:

1) Invasion.
2) No invasion.

You do have to pick between the two "extremes" in this case, because you were talking about a one or the other concept. You assert that the Iraqis would be better off had we not invaded. Ergo, you are asserting that Saddam's genocidal dictatorship is better for the Iraqi people.

hrandani

No, it isn't. I did not lay out either of those two options, and you quote me as asking you how you know they will be better off from our invasion. Not an invasion.

There were all sorts of options available that did not involve the United States performing the role of Clint Eastwood that you do not seem to be entertaining as possibilies, and you might have reasons for that. Regardless, they existed at that point in time, whether or not you agree they would have been as "effective".

That is what I said.

maximusveritas

Looks like CNN has finally decided to report this story:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/bri...emo/index.html

Maybe other news organizations will start to do their job now.
I don't understand how any rational person can honestly defend the Bush administration on this.

host

Well..... the WAPO ombusman commented on the lack of coverage, but offered no explanation and no criticism of the Washington Post:
IMO, there is no way to over emphasize the following excerpt, by isolating it from it's place in the thread starter:

guy44

I agree wholly with Host here. There's a lot of bickering in this thread over whether or not the Iraq war was a good thing. That's for another thread. The key point here, and really, this can't be understated, is that regardless of whether the war is right or wrong, Bush altered the facts and misrepresented the reasons for war in order to trick the United States and several other nations into supported a war he desired.

Does nobody else have a problem with this?

edited for grammar

__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

host

Mojo_PeiPei, how many American troops and innocent Iraqi civilians must suffer the loss of life or limb before you would be willing to consider reacting to the results of Bush and his administration's provocations and pretenses designed to provoke invasion and war, without your tendencies, up to now, to divert the issue to disputing the numbers of reported casualties, or by making your argument quoted above?

What increase in the numbers of dead would influence a shift in your focus to a willingness to consider that now that the WMD fabrication is neutered and exposed for what it actually was......."intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.", there is a possibility based upon results of weapons inspections in Iraq, and this reported "secret memo", validated by officials in the UK Labour government, in affirming statements, and in a total lack of reports of any efforts to dispute the accuracy of the contents of the memo, even on the eve of last week's national election in th UK, that Bush himself committed high treason and violations of his oath of office? Are articles of impeachment, under these circumstances, that far fetched a possibility?

If not, how many American troops would need to be ordered to fight and then die under fabricated and misleading circumstances, defending against non-existant threats to U.S. security? For an invasion for a declared purpose of pre-emptively eliminating a WMD program that was described and sold to the American people as an imminent threat to our "national security" but now is disclosed by reliable sources, to be merely, ."intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

You were an ardent defender and believer, Mojo_, up until last week, when you conceded that you had not seen White House admissions that there is no evidence of Iraqi WMD transfers to Syria or to other hidden, foreign sites. I would think that these unexpected reports would surprise and anger you, now, or at some point. Does it not disturb you that lack of WMD discovery and the contents of the UK "secret memo" seem eeirily reminiscent to the following?
I am disturbed, and I expected since before the invasion that this comparison was relevant. When you allow for this possibility, and I think that you will at some point, I predict that you won't be posting a "so what" defense of Bush and Blair and their respective administrations.............
Mojo_, can you see yourself, fifteen years from now, explaining to your children that you defended this presidential administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq, considering what you have been exposed to by your participation in this forum, and by living in the U.S. in these times? How would you explain your quoted statement and your defense of Bush's invasion to them?

Mojo_PeiPei

Yes I can see myself defending this war to my children in 15 years. As myself and other have stated here before, the who/what/why's are someone elses means to an end, not mine. I see Bushs actions, regardless of motives, as correcting one of the worlds greatest injustices through our action in Iraq. We hung those people out to dry after Gulf War I and we put them in a world of hell with the sanctions. Because of Saddam it is not a lie or exaggeration to say that MILLIONS of people are dead because he had no regard for his own people, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people are dead because the guy was a total paranoid nutbar, now he'll never be able to hurt anyone again. I have always been big on the saying that all evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing, well we did nothing and millions upon million needlessly suffered... I see our action in Iraq as finally doing something in a mess we started. What you fail to realize is that words or bureaucracy(sp) (read the UN and it's actions) have no power and no authority, they don't get shit accomplished, all they are is hot air. I would've been fine with going into Iraq without the build up of WMD's, it was our mess to fix.

On top of that, I know the world will be a better place for them as Americans to grow up in because of our actions now. People like you are too shortsighted and blind to the policy behind the actions, that being the bottomline. We will never fully know the effects of our actions, because I'm willing to bet the farm that a great deal of drama and conflict is being averted by American blood in Iraq. As such in the long run America will be a stronger nation for this, as this action in Iraq keeps the world political landscape favorable to us.

samcol

Yes I have a huge problem with it. We have this kind of thing come out and the unwavering support by Republicans continues for Bush. The mentality is almost like "so what Bush lied to us for our own good." That argument is pretty rediculous. The end justifies the means I guess (even though I don't happen to agree with the end).

Seaver

The exact same thing can be turned around. There is unwavering opposition to Bush by the Liberals here. Everything I hear is he lied, he's a puppet, he's trying to take over the world, he's hitler (my personal fav.).

If you actually look at a lot of us conservatives we dont support him in everything. In almost all of his social changes (gay marriage, etc) I oppose him. What I dont see is people on the left coming across the isle on topics and admitting when he is right.

Manx

If you believe there is some interconnectedness between the fact that you do not support Bush's social policies and a requirement that liberals should therefore admit he was right on some unnamed topic, you are incorrect.

There may indeed be something in Bush's policies that I agree with. However, when it comes to the most important policies, there is nothing I agree with. The war, not even close. Taxes and the economy, polar opposites. Social Security, zero compatibility. I could go on.

Maybe his rather minor disapproval of the Minute Man project - I can agree with him on that, though I would still fault him in that regard for not disapproving of it enough. (And even still, I'm quite confident he only mumored his disapproval to pander for Hispanic votes for the Republican party.)

But I don't see how your disapproval of his social policies requires anyone to agree with any of his policies.

Is the rather minor and few topics for which I might agree with his policies somehow supposed to counter balance the reality that he flat out manipulated America, the UN and the World in order to start a war?