patrick.net

tatupu70 says

This is a line of argumentation that Bush administration officials and Iraq war boosters have been clinging to ever since it became clear that U.S. troops would found no mobile biological weapons labs and no Mutual Admiration Society correspondence between Saddam and Osama.

No - this is the line all independent investigations including the bi-partisan Robb-Silberman Commission determined. All you got are the hacks at Salon saying different. Couldn't you find a DailyKos link or something from MediaMatters too?

You just want to be a good ISIS monkey claiming America lies to start wars to kill Muslims or something.

Bravo!

What's with all the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Hadley/Feith revisionism here? Is Patrick's new role as Keyboard Kommando Against Islamofascism inspiring the human trash to crawl back out of from under their rocks? Are wingnuts feeling guilty?

Why shy away from the term "lying"? Powell knew the intelligencs was b.s.

Colin Powell said to his staff during the preparation for his U.N. speech: ""I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/02/usa.iraq

Fresh evidence emerged last night that Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was so disturbed about questionable American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he assembled a secret team to review the information he was given before he made a crucial speech to the UN security council on February 5.
Mr Powell conducted a full-dress rehearsal of the speech on the eve of the session at his suite in the Waldorf Astoria, his New York base when he is on UN business, according to the authoritative US News and World Report.

Much of the initial information for Mr Powell's speech to the UN was provided by the Pentagon, where Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, set up a special unit, the Office of Special Plans, to counter the uncertainty of the CIA's intelligence on Iraq.

Mr Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, US News and World Report says today. At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine.

Presented with a script for his speech, Mr Powell suspected that Washington hawks were "cherry picking", the US magazine Newsweek also reports today. Greg Theilmann, a recently retired state department intelligence analyst directly involved in assessing the Iraqi threat, says that inside the Bush administration "there is a lot of sorrow and anger at the way intelligence was misused".

Reinventing History

Several months later, with Hussein’s government ousted and with the U.S. military coming up empty in its search for WMD caches, Bush began his historical revisionism by insisting publicly that he had no choice but to invade because Hussein supposedly had barred U.N. inspectors.

On July 14, 2003, Bush told reporters: “We gave him [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.”

Facing no contradiction from the White House press corps, Bush continued repeating this lie again and again in varied forms.

On Jan. 27, 2004, for example, Bush said, “We went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution – 1441 – unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in.”

As the months and years went by, Bush’s lie and its unchallenged retelling took on the color of truth. At a March 21, 2006, news conference, Bush again blamed the war on Hussein’s defiance of U.N. demands for unfettered inspections.

“I was hoping to solve this [Iraq] problem diplomatically,” Bush said. “The world said, ‘Disarm, disclose or face serious consequences.’ … We worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny the inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did.”

At a press conference on May 24, 2007, Bush offered a short-hand version of the made-up tale, even inviting the journalists to remember the invented history.

“As you might remember back then, we tried the diplomatic route: [U.N. Resolution] 1441 was a unanimous vote in the Security Council that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. So the choice was his [Hussein’s] to make. And he made a choice that has subsequently caused him to lose his life.”

In one of his White House exit interviews – on Dec. 1, 2008 – Bush again revived his convenient version of history, that Hussein was responsible for the invasion because he wouldn’t let the U.N. inspectors in. ABC News anchor Charles Gibson asked Bush, “If the [U.S.] intelligence had been right [and revealed no Iraq WMD], would there have been an Iraq War?”

Bush answered, “Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld.”

In his frequent repetition of this claim, Bush never acknowledged the fact that Hussein did comply with Resolution 1441 by declaring accurately that he had disposed of his WMD stockpiles and by permitting U.N. inspectors to examine any site of their choosing.

Media Complicity

And never did mainstream reporters contradict Bush’s false history to his face. Indeed, some prominent Washington journalists even adopted Bush’s lie as their own. For instance, in a July 2004 interview, ABC’s veteran newsman Ted Koppel used it to explain why he – Koppel – thought the invasion of Iraq was justified.

“It did not make logical sense that Saddam Hussein, whose armies had been defeated once before by the United States and the Coalition, would be prepared to lose control over his country if all he had to do was say, ‘All right, U.N., come on in, check it out,” Koppel told Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now.”

In the real history, Hussein did tell the U.N. to “come on in, check it out.” But faux reality had become the trademark of the Bush presidency – and of its many supporters in the press corps.

Washington’s conventional wisdom eventually embraced another fake belief, that Hussein provoked the war by misleading people into believing that he still possessed WMD. The fact that Hussein and his government had declared they didn’t possess WMD was forgotten.

In line with the bogus version of history, “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley asked FBI interrogator George Piro, who had debriefed Hussein in prison, why the dictator kept pretending that he had WMD even as U.S. troops massed on Iraq’s borders, when a simple announcement that the WMD was gone would have prevented the war.

“For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking,” Pelley said in introducing the segment on the interrogation of Hussein about his WMD stockpiles, which aired Jan. 27, 2008. “Why did he choose war with the United States?”

This “60 Minutes” segment never mentioned the fact that Hussein and his government did disclose that the WMD had been eliminated. Instead Pelley pressed Piro on the mystery of why Hussein supposedly was hiding that fact: “Why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?”

After Piro mentioned Hussein’s lingering fear of neighboring Iran, Pelley felt he was close to an answer to the mystery: “He believed that he couldn’t survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction?”

But, still, Pelley puzzled over why Hussein’s continued in his miscalculation. Pelley asked: “As the U.S. marched toward war and we began massing troops on his border, why didn’t he stop it then? And say, ‘Look, I have no weapons of mass destruction,’ I mean, how could he have wanted his country to be invaded?”

Now, with the publication of Karl Rove’s memoir, the American public can expect a reprise of the argument that it was unfair for anyone to accuse President Bush of lying about Iraq, that he simply believed mistaken intelligence and did what he thought was best for America. In other words, Bush was the victim of mean critics, not a dishonest warmonger.

One also can expect that the mainstream U.S. news media will continue to forget its own role in perpetuating the lie that George W. Bush would never lie.

https://consortiumnews.com/2012/04/26/bush-did-lie-about-iraq/

HydroCabron says

What's with all the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Hadley/Feith revisionism here? Is Patrick's new role as Keyboard Kommando Against Islamofascism inspiring the human trash to crawl back out of from under their rocks? Are wingnuts feeling guilty?

Right - we are "human trash" and "revisionists" to push back against ISIS/Leftist prop that America started the Iraq war based on lies to kill Muslims or steal oil or something.

Not one of you ISIS supporting mooks have disputed the bi-partisan Rob-Silberman's commission's findings.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/laurence-h-silberman-the-dangerous-lie-that-bush-lied-1423437950

Nor has anyone disputed the Factcheck.org link debunking of the "Yellowcake Lie".
http://factcheck.bootnetworks.com/article222.html

You know, when you ape the same shit that ISIS believes, you may want to step away from the keyboard for a few.

HydroCabron says

Colin Powell said to his staff during the preparation for his U.N. speech: ""I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."

Powell also famously said, "You break it, you own it."

socal2 says

Right - we are "human trash" and "revisionists" to push back against ISIS/Leftist prop that America started the Iraq war based on lies to kill Muslims or steal oil or something.

Not one of you ISIS supporting mooks have disputed the bi-partisan Rob-Silberman's commission's findings.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/laurence-h-silberman-the-dangerous-lie-that-bush-lied-1423437950

Nor has anyone disputed the Factcheck.org link debunking of the "Yellowcake Lie".

http://factcheck.bootnetworks.com/article222.html

You know, when you ape the same shit that ISIS believes, you may want to step away from the keyboard for a few.

From the factcheck.org link on yellowcake:

"The Senate report doesn't make clear why discovery of the forged documents changed the CIA's thinking. Logically, that discovery should have made little difference since the documents weren't the basis for the CIA's original belief that Saddam was seeking uranium. However, the Senate report did note that even within the CIA the comments and assessments were "inconsistent and at times contradictory" on the Niger story."

I know it's inconceivable that Tenet fell on the sword for his boss. Even if you want to believe that Bush believed that the yellowcake story was true, it's only 1 of many, many instance where intelligence was exaggerated, cherry picked, or outright made up to present a convincing case for War.

Even Tony Blair said this in a now unclassified doc.

“Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD,” the secret memo reads. “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

socal2 says

America started the Iraq war based on lies to kill Muslims or steal oil or something

Uhmm, the agenda is/was no secret.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

socal2 says

You know, when you ape the same shit that ISIS believes, you may want to step away from the keyboard for a few.

Impugning the patriotism of Iraq War opponents. 2003 called: They want their rhetoric back.

Time for another entry in the thread about conservatives being above personal attacks.

HydroCabron says

Impugning the patriotism of Iraq War opponents. 2003 called: They want their rhetoric back.

Being against the Iraq war is totally legitimate. You have not seen me impugn the patriotism of any of those who were against the war.

But I sure as shit will impugn the patriotism of the morons who still regurgitate the "Bush Lied!" lie. This lie is as bad as the 9/11 truther morons.

If you don't want to be called an ISIS supporting monkey, stop aping their propaganda.

The Iraq War being a lie and a dumb idea to remove a strongman does not make Islam the Religion of Peace.

socal2 says

But I sure as shit will impugn the patriotism of the morons who still regurgitate the "Bush Lied!" lie. This lie is as bad as the 9/11 truther morons.

If you don't want to be called an ISIS supporting monkey, stop aping their propaganda.

Are Colin Powell and Tony Blair ISIS supporting monkeys also?

tatupu70 says

Are Colin Powell and Tony Blair ISIS supporting monkeys also?

Tony Blair for sure as he has sold out his country with unhinged immigration. Can't make a judgement about Powell.

tatupu70 says

Are Colin Powell and Tony Blair ISIS supporting monkeys also?

I can't speak for Blair, but I lost all respect for Powell when he let Scooter Libby get hung out to dry knowing full well it was his deputy (Richard Armitage) who told Novak about Valerie Plame.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/colin-powells-cheap-shot/2011/03/29/gIQA2Q0smJ_blog.html

But I don't think Powell has ever said Bush or the Administration lied about WMDs. Most recent reports has Mike Morrell from the CIA apologizing to Powell for the CIA getting the intelligence wrong.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-morell-apologizes-colin-powell-about-cia-pre-iraq-war-wmd-evidence/

socal2 says

If you don't want to be called an ISIS supporting monkey, stop aping their propaganda.

Bush and his minions either lied or they didn't.

Refusing to believe a thing on the grounds that somebody from Daesh might believe it is the height of moronic political correctness.

There are men in ISIS who believe that swallowing mercury is bad for you. Are you going to therefore declare mercury safe to eat?

mell says

immigration

There are other political issues besides immigration. Can you think of more than one thing in a day?

thunderlips11 says

The Iraq War being a lie and a dumb idea to remove a strongman does not make Islam the Religion of Peace.

I agree.

It's the same as how some Ukrainian rebels being old-school fascists does not make the Russian troops in Donbass "vacationing volunteers", and does not prove that the Ukrainians shot down a passenger airplane.

HydroCabron says

mell says

immigration

There are other political issues besides immigration. Can you think of more than one thing in a day?

Not for those trapped inside a metropolis that once felt like part of their fatherland/motherland. It's one of the main issues in Europe now and could be a precursor for the US. Carefully vetted (skills, compatibility) LEGAL immigration with preferences has always beaten illegal, unvetted immigration.

HydroCabron says

It's the same as how some Ukrainian rebels being old-school fascists does not make the Russian troops in Donbass "vacationing volunteers", and does not prove that the Ukrainians shot down a passenger airplane.

Yep.

Or how intervening in Libya by getting rid of Qaddafy leading to the rise of MB and Islamist Militias running the country is exactly the same shit Bush did in Iraq, just without a ground force.

Hillary/W, 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fgcd1ghag5Y

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5BIW6qyrdu4

bob2356 says

The FBI says in the last 25 years 6% of terrorist attacks in the US have been by muslims. The have actually been more jewish terrorist attacks in the us than muslim. Go look up something called the START Global Terrorism Database, it's public.

I did. And it includes spiking redwood trees by the Earth Liberation Front as "Terror" or the breaking of a window by suspected Anarchists or even vandalism by the "Veterans for Non-Religious Memorials" (Coos Bay, OR) as Terrorism.

Like I said, there's what ordinary people consider Terrorism and whatever Definition the count-keepers are using. Most people do not consider Trees or Bulldozers or Windows to be the same as French Rock Fans or Window-on-the-World Waiters.

A bunch of smelly dirt worshipping hippies sabotaging a Bulldozer in some National Forest in Washington State is counted as one terrorist act, 9/11 is counted as one terrorist act. There's also a huge number of "Unknowns" counted as terror in the database (how do they know it's terrorism, then, and not crazy kids or ex-spouses or disgruntled employees with apolitical motivations?).

What's even more interesting is some bizarre ommisions. What's wrong with this list?

Hint: October 2002, almost 20 people killed and more injured, clear Islamic Motivation. Multiple attacks, which should qualify each one as a terrorist attack. Yet taken as a whole or individually, they not on this list...

I searched by date just in case:

Here's another question, if a bunch of North African hoodlums in France beat up an elderly man and take his wallet, calling him a dirty kuffar in the process, and their computers are chock full of "Algerian Cilantro, best Cilantro! Glory to Mohammed! French Women are Whores who need Arab Fertility!" are they terrorists or just criminals? If the former, than we are undercounting terrorism.

What happened October 2002?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks

thunderlips11 says

Hint: October 2002, almost 20 people killed and more injured, clear Islamic Motivation. Multiple attacks, which should qualify each one as a terrorist attack. Yet taken as a whole or individually, they not on this list...

Clear islamic motivation? You aren't serious. He was also motivated by the matrix. How exactly did you determine out of all the deranged rantings about motivation it was the islamic motivation that really counted?

thunderlips11 says

Like I said, there's what ordinary people consider Terrorism and whatever Definition the count-keepers are using.

I don't consider spiking trees terrorism either. But I do consider racist, anti government, anti abortion, anti whatever religion, etc., etc. etc. attacks that kill people terrorism. By your count what was the score over the last 40 years or so? You and patrick and stratigist can hide in your basements pissing your pants all you want. I'm not very concerned. I'm a lot more likely to be killed by lightning than a terrorist who probably won't be islamic anyway.

bob2356 says

Clear islamic motivation? You aren't serious. He was also motivated by the matrix. How exactly did you determine out of all the deranged rantings about motivation it was the islamic motivation that really counted?

He had multiple journal entries describing Jihad. Quotes from the Koran and the Hadith. Both were Muslim converts. Yep, Mohammed was borderline nutty, but many terrorists are dry drunks/mentally ill.

bob2356 says

I don't consider spiking trees terrorism either. But I do consider racist, anti government, anti abortion, anti whatever religion, etc., etc. etc. attacks that kill people terrorism. By your count what was the score over the last 40 years or so? You and patrick and stratigist can hide in your basements pissing your pants all you want. I'm not very concerned. I'm a lot more likely to be killed by lightning than a terrorist who probably won't be islamic anyway.

I don't piss my pants over Islam and I consider Islamic terrorism in the West to be flies on a elephant's ass. My fear is Demographic pressure destroying Western Europe.

The ignorance in the West about the long legacy of Islamic Imperialism-Colonialism of Europe is Appalling. Everybody's heard of the Crusades, but few of the Battle of Tours or the Battle at the Gates of Vienna or the Enslavement of White Europeans by North African and Muslim Steppe Raiders that lasted from the Dark Ages to the 19th Century.

Islamic Colonialist-Imperialists controlled a more than quarter of Europe and ruthlessly oppressed the population for centuries, until well into the Enlightenment Era.

This was a century after Columbus reached the new world; after Martin Luther had lived and died.

Here are Christian Slaves held in Algeria, 1815. That's right, after the US Revolution, after the War of 1812.

Arab Slavery is what "To the Shores of Tripoli" is all about in the USMC Hymn.

How the Tzar smashed the Iranian White Slave Trade - the 19th Century. This is just a few years before the US Civil War.
http://15minutehistory.org/2015/08/26/episode-70-race-slavery-abolition-in-iran/

Arab Slave Market, selling of a Balkan Christian Girl, 1884, 20 years after the American Civil War.