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About that Whole “Bush Lied, People Died”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” — John Adams
Published in General
Let me put it to you this way: Which is the speech in which Mr. W. Bush explained the reasons why it was necessary & good for the US to go to war in Iraq? Surely, we should at least take his case at its strongest, so by all means, let’s-
Fine by me.
But I don’t remember that speech, and haven’t carved out the time to figure out which speech it was and watch it while taking notes.
I’m just thinking that if I’m going to be educated by someone else and not do a bundle of my own research to figure it out, then the folks doing the educating ought to say what they’re talking about.
Prager (who in general is awesome) is inviting the masses to cling to their ignorance.
So Bush et al made a mistake. Fine; I can live with that. But what was it?
Mr. Prager is not awesome. He is not even a polite interviewer-
See Comment #1, for a start.
I read it. But that’s a laundry list. Lots of those things don’t sound like reasons America should be going to war in Iraq. The thing is, what reason or what number of reasons particular to America–as opposed to Iraq–moved the president.
Great comments here. Let’s keep in mind, decisions are never made on retrospectively ‘knowing what we know now’. There is the reality of the moment and it’s that moment a President must make a decision. When you have overwhelming intelligence and even the NY Times making the case (as discussed in the video) that Iraq is an existential threat, and we are within months of 9/11, would we all not have made the same decision?
America’s (Obama admin) biggest mistake was not following Powell’s correct suggestion stating that if we were to break Iraq, we would need to fix it (paraphrasing).
I’d submit that it may be a better line of argument because it essentially avoids the issue of WMD’s, which may be your point (?). However, criticism from the left on the WMD issue, even the knowledgeable left, is de rigeur because they essentially refuse to meet the issues raised in this video head on. Yes, one will be met with criticism–that’s what you get–but not criticism that undermines the narrative in the video of what Bush knew and when he knew it.
Yes, Miller is controversial (Pulitzer not withstanding) because the hard-core left views her as complicit in Iraq. As penance for the Pulitzer and to appease its core readership, the Times did an after-the-fact reevaluation of its coverage (hindsight being 20-20) that threw Miller under the bus. One would expect nothing less.
Why is it so important to prove what Bush knew, one way or the other? It may be a nice thing for him to prove that he acted decently, but he isn’t running for President. His character issues are a historical fight.
What you are left with is a Republican administrations competence – and that’s where defending Bush’s character means throwing that administration’s reputation for foreign policy competence (already deeply contested, and I understand not just by Democrats) under a bus.
What is the benefit to you from having this conversation at this particular point in time? Even with a video that brands “I was wrong” with Democratic Party colours, I can’t see a realistic political objective.
Right- there are lots of Monday morning QBs.
A useful URL:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html
It looks to me like this chap has done a lot of research on this topic.
“ISIS Detainee Tells U.S. of Militants’ Plan to Use Mustard Gas”
A couple observations here to connect the dots:
So it’s not a stretch to imagine that this is the scenario that Colin Powell described to the UN come to fruition.
Of course the NYT can’t connect those dots… Neither can Clapper.
It is correct. It was shipped to Canada.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/244245/we-drove-saddams-yellowcake-baghdad-airport-carter-andress
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25546334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/secret-us-mission-hauls-uranium-iraq/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/07/iraq.uranium/
They were really hungry up there, huh?
Thanks for the links. I think I’ll keep at least one open and read it tomorrow. Looks very informative. 140 truckloads of Saddam’s uranium and 5,000 chemical weapons, and . . . Bush lied for oil. Yeah, that totally makes sense.
If it was all a lie then why didn’t the admin plant some wmd’s in the desert and ’find’ them?
I believe this analysis on the significance (especially the legal significance) of all the nuclear material, or the lack thereof, will be informative: http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2013/03/10-year-anniversary-start-Operation-Iraqi-Freedom-thoughts.html#nuclear.