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11.17.2005
ABC News: Cheney calls war critics 'dishonest, reprehensible': Since the latest Republican talking points have infiltrated my comments I shall address them here. "Administration officials have acknowledged intelligence on Iraqi weapons was faulty, but say Democrats, Republicans and foreign intelligence agencies all believed Baghdad had deadly weapons before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion." Ah yes, now we trot out the "Well, we all thought it was true" defense. More evidence that Rove is back in charge of the propaganda writing department at the White House. "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone — but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history," said Cheney, a principal architect of the war and a focus of Democratic allegations the administration misrepresented intelligence on Iraq's weapons program. Rewriting history? "We're not going to sit by..."? There's something trademark about the false victimhood of the GOP talking points that instantly makes them recognizable. And of course the claim that others are trying to rewrite history is laughable if you can remember back about six months ago when the talking points were that we needed to invade Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East, and that the WMD argument was simply a convenient rallying point. Not too long ago the WMD argument was considered moot, as we were about to see the emergence of a democratic Iraq which would lead the Middle East in a wave of peace and freedom. Then, it was said, we would realize why Bush needed to use the WMD argument to get the American people on board for this invasion. The ends would justify the means. But that is in the past, and we have a new set of definitions of reality to abide by. I just wish I could get a refund for the all the time I spend refuting each new set of talking points.... ok... Anyone who reads this blog closely understands that I am not a partisan. But that doesn't keep people from assuming that if they can score one on the Democrats that they can get me to back down. Not true. I'll repeat it again for all the obtuse: I don't care about what the Democrats do or say, it doesn't affect what I believe one way or the other. There are, as hard as it may be to believe, people that ignore the partisan bickering and consider it mostly trivial. When we were being lead to this invasion back in '03 I distinctly remember being left out to dry by a large contingent of the Democratic party who thought it would be safer to play along with Bush and his rush to start bombing than take what was then considered "unpatriotic" or "soft" positions on "the war". So you can see why I'm not in any rush to defend them from the Republican attacks. Make no mistake, Bush, as the one who advocated for the war, deserves the bulk of the blame for the deception and mistakes surrounding the debacle in Iraq, but the Democrats who failed to stand up to him are responsible as well. Cheney is right in some regard, the Bush administration DID fool the Democrats into supporting them, but he's also being a world-class asshole by trying to use that fact to diminish his role in leading us into this mess in the first place. right... Since everyone believed that Saddam had WMD's then Bush was right to invade. Since I was actually alive back in 2003 and had the ability to read I will tell you what really happened. Many of the world's intelligence agencies did indeed SUSPECT that Saddam may have rebuilt some of his WMD program. But, and this is a vital point, most people were not sure about the accuracy of this information as there was very little means to actually verify or deny its reliability. The idea, as it was presented, was that Saddam had the INTENT to redevelop his programs, that he had the resources available to him in terms of knowledge provided to him by the United States years ago, and that without inspectors in the country to watch over him it was LIKELY that he was working on something. This was the case, mostly circumstantial, that was presented by Colin Powell before the United Nations. The nearly unanimous verdict by MOST OF THE WORLD, was that this was insufficient proof for invasion. But most people conceeded that it might be prudent to use the threat of force to push Saddam to comply with prior UN resolutions. Most of the world pushed for inspections to verify or deny the existence of dangerous weapons. Many of us (gasp!) thought that taking the drastic step of toppling a nation's government and opening that hornet's nest of trouble should be done with the most reliable evidence available. hence... Inspections in Iraq resumed on 27 November 2002. In matters relating to process, notably prompt access to sites, we have faced relatively few difficulties and certainly much less than those that were faced by Unscom in the period 1991 to 1998. This may well be due to the strong outside pressure. ok, so choke on that... and reality as it really happened. The authorization to use military force was passed in early October to accomplish compliance with United Nations Security council resolutions. SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. ...and the part that gets overlooked, the same resolution also calls for diplomatic efforts as well. SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS The Democrats, in my opinion, were wrong to support this resolution, because Bush was showing no inclination that he would make a good faith effort to let diplomatic means play out. The administration was already preparing for an invasion and even efforts by the United Nations inspectors or the other members of the Security Council at finding a peaceful means to ensure that Iraq posed no threat were discounted. Upon hearing that Iraq had agreed to allow inspectors back into Iraq a Bush official said: ""If [Saddam] thinks this is about letting inspectors in, or playing the same old game of give a little when under pressure, he is about to learn differently." I like many others thought the whole ordeal with the Security Council was nothing but a game to get congressional support for a invasion that had been planned since the days immediately after 9-11. This turned out to be the case, the United States went ahead and invaded without the support of the Security Council. When it became obvious that the case for the war; that Saddam was not in compliance with Security Council resolutions, that he had hidden weapons, and that he was intending to use them to harm the United States, started to unravel, Bush went ahead and attacked anyways. But whew... getting the facts straight sure does take time and effort. |
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