A good analysis for those of us who hate Dubya

[PherdnutChiken]

Slate did a beautiful piece on last night's press conference.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2098810/

He is so going down.

[Snake-Chiken]

Yep hes out there.
then again that other clown looks almost as bad.

[PherdnutChiken]

At this point I'd almost take Stalin.

[Anonymous]

Very nice. BAWK!

[OmegaChiken]

yep i'd go with stalin sounds better than bush, he almost died from a snack food for crying out loud.

[Snake-Chiken]

yep i'd go with stalin sounds better than bush, he almost died from a snack food for crying out loud.


and this twat is incharge of the worlds most powerfull country?

This is what bush should have siad " look were going into Iraq for the oil, hey they have turbins of mass destruction, have you seen them things? Oviously they are hiding either very bad hair or no hair or they each have bombs straped to there head all reasons are good enough for war in my book. So we are going in full force.what can they do about it ? nothing mwahahahhahaha." ( Mwahahahahah. ( shakes todger at camera. Guess whos gona fook with you !! Yes bushy baby is comming to get ya! Saddam I know you want it:-)


That would have been better than his bullshit story that they have weapons on mass destruction which at the moment consistes of a tooth pic and a dentists drill. I agree both are frightening. The tooth pic if not used right could put your eye out!!!

[OmegaChiken]

dintist drill ouch hate those buggers

[peekaboochiken]

bawk

tell me is it tooth picks that are killing coalition soldiers every fucking day, nope didnt think so

did saddam have weapons of mass destruction, 10,000 kurds would testify he did, if they were alive

they havent found them, but there is no doubt the expertise to make them was there.

[Snake-Chiken]

bawk

tell me is it tooth picks that are killing coalition soldiers every fucking day, nope didnt think so

did saddam have weapons of mass destruction, 10,000 kurds would testify he did, if they were alive

they havent found them, but there is no doubt the expertise to make them was there.


truth be told that place is now like bothe here in the 70`s and libenon in the 80`s
its not a small amount of people in Iraq who what us out. Its most of them. The womd where destroyed first time around by the un by the looks of it. Plus Bush and Blair stated that they knew where the weapons where and would get them right away in the first few days of the war. One year later still nothing. noting even biological. Which is what the kurds got done with many moons ago.
Fact of the matter is we arnt welcome there and we are losing men for a non just reason. Hell America supplied Saddom with all his weapons till Bush senior got pissed off at him. We tured a blind eye to his mass murfering in the 80`s. We are at fault also for allwing it to happen. We cant just blame saddom on that. yep ghe had to go but now the iraqies seem to have united and want one thing only. That is us the hell out of there. Thing is its not like here in Ireland where half the people want the likes of the english to stay. They plan simply dont want our help and secondly because we havt lived up to our promises the have lost what little respect they had for us. We ought to get out now before we lose many more lives.

[GuerillaChiken]

yep i'd go with stalin sounds better than bush,

HISTORY LESSON

Uh...no you wouldn't. Open up a history book, turn to page that talks about Russia in the early 20th Century until 1953. You will see more bloodshed and more murder than the world has ever known. And yes more than what Hitler did.

Stalin orchestrated a famine in the Ukraine, all because they didn't want to collectivize their farms. Then he murdered his entire officer corps. Because of his actions, many millions of his people died when the Nazis invaded. Hell they weren't even his people. Did you know he wasn't even Russian? He was Georgian, his name was Joseph Dzigashvili, and before the revolutions he worked for the Okhrana, the Czars secret police. I wonder how many peeps he killed then.


READ and LEARN

[GuerillaChiken]

Why do you HATE Bush? I cannot fathom that. How can you hate a man, who in the most part has done nothing to you?

Here is what it comes down to. Leftists in America don't like him because he actually stands for something you don't believe in, and he is willing to push those beliefs through. For example, not allowing gays to marry. This is his, and ATLEAST 70% of the American populations belief.

But for the most part, peeps don't like him b/c he is republican, and every mistake made is simply elevated to catastrophe b/c of this bias.

Now what about the Europeans? Europeans have never liked an American President that has tried to strengthen the US. When the soviets put Medium Range Nuclear Missles in E. Germany. Reagan tried to put missles of the same type in West Germany as a counter balance. What did the hippies in Europe do? They protest! They protest a measure that would ultimately protect them. LOGIC ABOUNDS!

OK, I like the Irish...but you guys sided with the Germans two times in your history. Buzz off, and don't cry about our "dictators," when you have sided with Hitler and Mussolini in your history. so lets not complain about the US giving arms to peeps.

As for the article. Good article, he makes good points. But he trips, stumbles and falls, like most of these guys do. He complained about Bush not going along with the UN. He said that he dodged a second hearing.

How many hearings do you people need! Saddam violated the resolutions in 1996 that ended the conflict in 1991! But the UN AND the US were too weak and cowardly to do anything about it.

I don't like polls, as I find them pretty inaccurate, but in large the Iraqi people want to be free. two years ago they weren't.

One thing you people need to realize about that culture. Leaders in those countries do not foster intellect. They rule by keeping their people stupid. Don't believe me? What class of people led revolts and protests in many of the Eastern bloc countries, excluding Poland? STUDENTS! Who now is leading the reformist movement in Iran. STUDENTS. These leaders are not stupid, they know that intellect in the populace challenges autocratic rule.

Once in a while these leaders are ousted, and others vying for power step in and change nothing but the name of the leader. That is the situation now. It isn't just the random Mohammed picking up some C-4 or symtex saying, "I am going to kill some American soldiers today." They are organized groups, that would like to see a return to autocratic rule. And until the Iraqi people AND the American AND the European WAKE THE FAWK UP, they will have fertile ground for their ideas and power to grow. The Iraqis will have to learn that freedom is better than bondage. That will take time.

Freedom isnt' free, the IRISH should know this. To suggest that we can just walk out and it will make everything hunky dory. There would be even more violence, and the same power hungry murderers would be running the show again.

The people attacking American and other soldiers are NOT the people that want a free Iraq. the people that do, wear a little tag that says U.S. ARMY on it. Remember that.

REAL POLITIK lesson for the day kids.

[Anonymous]

Guerilla, what you just posted wasn't a description of politics at all. It's wag the dog jargon.

Until you find the WMD in Iraq, they didn't violate those UN Sanctions. Therefore, there's no UN green light to go to war. It's a case of circular reasoning. We went to war to protect ourselves from their WMD that don't exist and their cheap oil that isn't cheap and not for the ending of autocracy in Iraq.

The reason Bush is a bad person is because he lied about the reasons we went to war. It's not for going to war. Any idiot would have gone to war with Afganistan and any decent human being, given the correct reasons, would have wanted change for those less fortunate, the Iraqis. However, nobody wants to be lied to by our President.

Before you point a gun at me, you should be damn sure you know you're pulling the trigger for the right reason. As a normal person, and not a Bush Satan Worshipping follower, you'd feel guilty if you shot me and later found out I was innocent of the crime you shot me for.

Why do you HATE Bush? I cannot fathom that. How can you hate a man, who in the most part has done nothing to you?

Well sir, I hate Bush because he pulls the trigger and asks why later, but comes up with splendid lies to substantiate his original claims. The reasons we're at war now are not the same reasons we went to war. That's the tail wagging the dog, or rather the American President lying his ass off and covering it up by saying He's right because he is pro-life (which I am) and anti-gay (which I'm not).

Please notice that I capitalized that "He." I don't see how anyone who thinks of themselves as anything less than a God could make the "incredible" statements that he makes every day.

[Anonymous]

BTW, Guerilla, our population is growing faster than our number of jobs. Economy good? In what state of delusion?

[shutupandshave]

Russian genocide were the worst in all of history, I think it killed more people than all other genocide put together.

It was horrendous.


People hate bush because he's a liar.

One of the FC is stuck in basrah because Bush and Blair are liars. If they didn't lie, he would have come to the last FC fest.

Even if Iraq DID violate the UN resolutions - so did the Allies.
You cant start a war that the UN says OPENLY, is illegal, because someone did something the UN said is illegal - by that logic the Allies would have to start a war with themselves too.

[DysedChiken]

Peeps, My Peeps, lend me your ears....

K....not disputing Bush was a jackass and there are fourty countries that bought into it as well. Are they all liars? Not thinking.

Someone lied wouldn't be suprised at all it was Bush pushed the anger button for not letting his daddy finish the war...no excuse though. So in that respect I agree with Grace...don't much care for being lied to.

I think it irks me more when I see peeps saying that America should pull out and let Iraq self distruct into a fuedal war. You think oil price are bad now? wait till ya see what happens when the middle east blows up on itself.

Got no choice....you need to finish it. For right or wrong its got to be finished. Kinda like euthanizing a dog that has gone mean on ya. As a pet owner ya would have the surgery to fix it if the animal had worth (peeps in Iraq have worth) if ya didn't think it was worth it ya might euthanize it (which ya did when took Saddam out, only it hasn't turned out surgical and nice) now that ya missed with the euthanization (for all intents and purposes) ya got go finish it....hopefully it will settle out and a decent power will float to the the top.


One thing I applaud Blair and Bush for....having the conviction to try and clean up a mess they clearly made. Like it or not they made it and their allies and they should be responsible for helping clean it up.

As for an FC missing his fest. Its a wonderful thing to have the right to have a fest of freinds and some games. Ya may not see it but he opted to fight for the right for you to have that luxury even if its on the basis of you were lied to.

I hate the fact my government opted out. Based on the ficticious evidence presented we should of sided. Had we not been proven right by the absence of the burden of proof we would of gotten a huge black eye if Bush had been proven right.

Let's just hope the voters can see through both these wanks lies and do what they know is right.

Just my two centavos.

BAWK!

[peekaboochiken]

bawk



dont blame bush for the UN wimping out of their collective responsibility

[BillyTheChiken]

I see people saying Bush should fallow what the UN did or didn't say. When was the last time the UN initiated a conflict? Not entered, or responded to, but initiated? The UN as I see it is a reactionary group.

And WMD. Right, those mass-murder burrials we found weren't enough. So, it's okay to kill all the people you want, just as long as it's not Americans, and you are in the right. Now that's perverse.

As for the unemployment rate. Find me the rate number. Then find me the 'average' unemployment rate from the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's. I heard that we had finally come full circle to the average prior to our prosperity in the late 90's. Sound to me like we're due for a recession anyway. Recessions don't care who's in office, but the media can use them to slay anyone.

I don't care whats for or against, but I'm voting for Bush if for nothing other than I want to be able to buy an M14. I have my own agendas, too. Kerry's gun control doesn't fit in with them. As for the talking heads, screw 'em. It's all propaganda until you see it with your own eyes.

[Fanatic]

Even while I was for invading IRAQ, I had hoped they had a marschal plan in place to deal with the post war situation. But reading bush and characterising him, I can say only a few things:

1. He thinks he IS the unitied states himself, and his re-election is therefore more importent then ANYTHING else.
2. He can't admit any mistakes and is blinded by ideology itself (kind of extremist).
3. He can't change because he never is wrong.....well, only very stupid people have that characteristic, nuff said.

Therefore logic dictates the Unitid States is stupid to let him in power, only more harm will be done that way! Currently most of the world is alienated from the US, a result of his visions and the net of people close around him.

Republic or Democrat....get rid of this sucker, quickly!

[Snake-Chiken]

http://www.biscottiemanette.it/bush%20or%20chimp.jpg

http://www.laughatliberals.com/blog/wp-images/dems_war_tutu_02.jpg

http://www.laughatliberals.com/blog/wp-images/scoobyDOO-KERRY.jpg

http://www.laughatliberals.com/blog/wp-images/saddam_trial_01.jpg

One of those should get a chuckle

[Fanatic]

LOL, that funny Snake!

[PherdnutChiken]

Note: I said I'd "almost take Stalin" instead. I'm fully aware that he's one of the bloodiest dictators in the history of the world and was using the exaggeration for emphasis.

I'm dead set against leaving Iraq now that we're there, but I do think it was a mistake to go. We simply don't have the resources to liberate every country in the world and the admininistration's continuing attempts to link Al Qaeda to Hussein's Iraq is insulting to the intelligence of even the most ignorant and apathetic Gen-X hipster on the street. While many see it as a good thing for bad reasons, I'm a strong believer that our reasons must be right regardless. Going to war this easily without any real or compelling proof continues to reinforce an ugly set of precedents that need to be remedied.

The strongest arguments Bush has in his favor is the fact that Iran is backing off from their nuclear program and Khadaffi finally decided to reininitiate relations with the rest of the world. These are good things, but I'm not entirely certain spending the money that we are on engaging an uncertain enemy(ies?) with NO clearly defined exit plan beforehand was the best way to go about accomplishing this.

I was talking to a guy who I'm guessing was a colonel (never asked his rank) in the 101st airborne during the original Iraq conflict (yeah, crazy, just hangin out at a bar). He was definitely a member of the command staff. His opinion of the dickhead elements over there was lower than any I've ever heard expressed but I got the impression that he and many in his constituency thought this was a very poorly planned and thought out engagement and I think we're starting to see some of evidence of this now that they're sending more troops and extending tours while cutting pay. Hell, Schwarzkopf was against this thing. Do you think he votes Democrat?

Now we've got Clarke telling us that Bush has actually undermined the war on Terrorism and paints a picture of an administration that was obsessed with Iraq before 9/11 and woefully incapable of dealing with urgent intelligence regarding Al Qaeda properly. And you know what? Tenet and Powell aren't saying a damn thing. Not one peep. Not one denial. Powell, one of their favorite spokespeople is buttoning up. Why do you think that is? His book could have been delayed for years with all the potentially classified information that it might provide puzzle pieces to, but they let it out right when the 9/11 commissions got rolling. I don't think Clarke was the only guy in the White House that would like to see this president go down for the count. Whether anybody could have stopped Al Qaeda is academic in my mind. All that matters to me is that if it had been possible, they would have dropped the ball.

Why else do I hate Bush? He's alienated many of our European allies, he completely abandoned Clinton's diplomatic work in regards to the Israel/Palestine situation for petty reasons (policy was ABC according to Clarke's book, Anything But Clinton), he's gutted the EPA, and I truly think he's not a liar but rather not too bright and monkey freaking insane.

Would Iraq be better off if we hadn't dethroned Hussein? Absolutely not. Are we doing ourselves a favor by electing misguided cowboy presidents who still can't get their heads out of the ass of the glory days of World War II? I don't think so. Iraq isn't Vietnam, but it sure as Hell isn't Japan either. We could very well be in some serious economic trouble here and I don't think anybody here thinks it wise to liberate the world for freedom at the expense of all of our livelihoods. It's easy to preach a kinder gentler and well intentioned manifest destiny but I don't think anybody's prepared to trade in half their paycheck for it.

Our superpower status is in decline. We need to start learning to work with our allies and continuing to make new ones, not alienating the ones we have while new enemies pop up every day.

For the record here, I don't consider myself a Democrat. I'm not antiwar and I hate those freakin' idiot protester kids who are doing nothing but pushing the moderates over to the other side.

And 'Rilla, I love you man, but on this one I'm gonna have to disagree. There is no doubt in mind that this is one of the most arrogant and hubritical (that a word? Grace?) administrations that the country has ever seen.

Mind you, I didn't think Bush would be much better or worse than Gore. I thought they were both lame ducks and was hoping for an uneventful four years (anything but, unfortunately). I didn't think very highly of him but I definitely didn't hate this guy from the start and was still uncertain on whether the war on Iraq was justified or not until all these recent findings. I definitely had my suspicions but didn't think that they would all turn out to be true.

[PherdnutChiken]

Really gotta work on that "concise" thing. Posts that long are just thread killers.

[GuerillaChiken]

Until you find the WMD in Iraq, they didn't violate those UN Sanctions. Therefore, there's no UN green light to go to war. It's a case of circular reasoning. We went to war to protect ourselves from their WMD that don't exist and their cheap oil that isn't cheap and not for the ending of autocracy in Iraq.

Circular reasoning? OMG you use that more than you use the toilet seat. Saddam violated UN Resolution 1441, this resolution specifically says that Iraq must submit to inspections. HE KICKED THE INSPECTORS OUT IN 1996. VIOLATION. Nothing was done, b/c of the weakness of president clinton, and his preoccupation with other issues. Whether you agree or not, Bush had the right by the UN charter to uphold a UN mandate, whether or not France, Germany, or Russia, who all had multi billion $$$$ agreements with Saddam, wanted us to go in or not. That is linear reasoning. Break the law, get punished. Too complicated?

You hate him b/c he lied? Well then do you hate President Clinton? He lied under OATH. OATH OATH OATH. Bad reason to hate a politician, almost childish.

Clarke? Um, why do you trust his word? He gave a statement that directly contradicted his testimony under OATH OATH OATH, in front of the 9/11 Commision. Is he allowed to lie to? Or do we not hold everybody to the same standard?

Do you not think the Bush administration doesnt' feel guilty about what happened? I think it would be naive to believe that they feel that they are above blame.

How long was Bush in office before 9/11? Who was in office 8 years before him. Who had opportunities to get Bin Ladin from the Sudanese? Slick Willy that is who. Why isn't he in front of the 9/11 Commision? They put Janet up there.

All american administrations from Wilson on up is a little responsible for the situation, to place the blame on the one who just happened to be in the batters box when the shit hit the fan is irresponsible.

Pherd, research more about Iran, you will find what is going on there amazing and incredible. It isn't Khadafi, its the youth finally seeing the light, seeing that their culture is dying because of the evil that has ruled that part of the world for so long.

[PherdnutChiken]

Khadaffi's Libya. I don't know who the current leadership in Iran is, but yes, the youth seem to be making a lot more of their own choices nowadays. Thank YOU internet!

The apology thing is just politics and I don't really care about that either, but geez did it look bad when Bush tried to worm out of it when they suggested that he should do as Clarke did.

I don't care whether Bush lied. It only makes him look worse if he wasn't lying anyway. He made horrible choices based on nonreasoning. That's not good presidential behavior.

What was Clarke's contradictioin? I didn't hear about that.

[AltecCorp AOC]

Small Tactical Nuke or an old A-bomb would work nicely

[peekaboochiken]

bawk

surely Bush's choices were based on information given by his cabinet, his advisors, who gleamed their information from the subordinates, etc etc, al the way down the line.

Are you saying the whole american system and those who run it and participate in it are all as dumb as gorgie boy?

[shutupandshave]

Apparently the information was contrary to what we were told by Blair/Bush - but I've not seen the "before" and "after" reports personally - so I cant say for sure.

[OmegaChiken]

ok i dislike bush because of the anti-gay bs hes spouting and other reasons,like...he goes over to iraq and sasy there are weapons of mass distruction when none have been found. he was just completing what his dad started way back when and on a side note i do pick up a book and READ what you told about stalin is true but face it the guy was paranoid byond belife. i just dont like bush he does the"shoot first ask questions later" reutine and its pretty old. :( and p.s what kind of example is he seting in the world for nearly dying from a pretzle?

[shutupandshave]

I dont think anyone can be criticised for choking on food - it happens to anyone and everyone.

[KungFuChiken]

Regardless of whether there was any lies told by Bush, Blair, or anyone else, the fact remains that the 'coalition' have got us in to a situation that no one can see an end to.

If you believe that we can just stand someone up in June and say 'this is your leader' and expect the Iraqis to accept it, then your completely deluding yourself.

To have any chance of making any of this work, you need to have at least a basic understanding of the situation. The fact is, Iraq is a country that was made by the West after WWI. The people who live within the borders that we defined for them away back then simply couldnt give a shit where the line is drawn. The only thing that these people live by is their religion, not nationalism. They do not see themselves as Iraqis, they see themselves as either Sunni or Shia Muslims. And they despise each other!

So, take in to consideration that the majority of the people in Iraq are Shia Muslims. It would then be fair to say that any Government, if elected democratically, will be a Shia Government. But the West wont allow that, simply because Iran is also a Shia Government. The two would combine within a few years to create an Islamic superstate, and the threat to the terrorists of the Israeli government would be too great for the US to bear. Why do you think Saddam, a Sunni Muslim (the minority) was installed by us in the first place? Why do you think we supported his war with Iran (as Iran was seen as evil at that time, with Iraq supposed to be our friend)? The US cannot allow a Shia Government to be elected there, but if the will of the majority of Iraqi people is recognised, then it can only be a Shia government. So where do we go from there?

@ Peek: Im surprised at your comment about Saddam killing thousands of Kurds with WMD, simply because he didnt. The Kurdish settlement was right on the front-lines between the Iran-Iraq war, and it is interesting to note that after the war ended, UN testing showed that it was the chemical weapons used by the Iranians that killed the Kurds. So your assertion that the Iraqi Kurds can testify to Saddam's WMDs is false im afraid.

The bottom line is, as I said in my first line, is that the coalition have gotten us in to something and they have no idea how to get us back out of it again. In around 2 years time, perhaps sooner, there will be a Shia government in Iraq and the Sunni's will find themselves on the wrong end of the persecution. Israel will be under massive threat, and it will all be our own doing. In my mind, Bush and Blair have given no consideration whatsoever to these facts.

Fuck :-(

[peekaboochiken]

bawk

Saddam gassed the kurds in 1986 mate (i think, i'll try to re-find the links)

[KungFuChiken]

It was convenient for the Western media to claim it was Saddam who done this from the early 90s onwards.

I would rather believe the scientific evidence however which showed the gas used was not the kind which we supplied to Saddam (amazing the irony in this, eh?), but was a kind used only by the Iranians (in that region, at that time).

I will also look out the link for that report and post it later tonight when I get home.

Regardless, answer me this: When we provided these heinious weapons to Saddam, we knew for a fact that he had no means whatsoever to deliver them in a precise manner. So what did we expect? Dont you think that we are being slightly hypocritical in condemning him for using them in a way that killed innocents (even tho he didnt, but that's another matter) when we knew all along that innocent people would suffer...and we supplied them to him with that knowledge?!

We have alot to answer for in terms of our previous actions in that area of the world. After continually raping and pillaging the land and its peoples for hundreds of years, is it hardly surprising there is so much hatred towards us?

The fact remains that at this time, we have no idea whatsoever what the end result of our recent actions are going to be. One thing is for sure tho, I feel less and less confident that its going to be a peaceful resolution.

[GuerillaChiken]

OMega, I am not happy with Bush and his anti gay stance. But before we condemn one man, we have to go back to previous presidents and their actions.

The current act which Bush is enforcing now, only because liberal judges, and rightly so in my opinion, are violating it, is the Defense of Marriage Act. This act was created by the Clinton Administration. And do you know why Omega? It is because like Bush and every other politician, they only care about getting votes for himself or his party. The fact is, that most Americans oppose gay marriage, or atleast the recognition of it by the government. You have to remember that there is a country west of the Appalacians (sorry for the spelling) and East of the Sierra Nevadas, and the majority of those people, do not approve of homosexuality at all, except in a few very small pockets. Hell I live in one. The only place in Kansas where you cannot be discriminated against because of sexual preference. Perfect place for Bast btw.

Here are some links about Saddam and gassing, including some other links about his other acts of mass murder. Some of these articles point out a very good point about how the west ignored such atrocities.

1988 (http://www.joshuakucera.com/halabja.htm)

1991 (http://home.cogeco.ca/~kobserver/14-5-03-saddam-killing-fields.html)

Not sure about the credibility of this one, though it is a bit shocking. (http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html)


1983 (http://www.gendercide.org/case_anfal.html)

Halabja 1988 (http://www.khrw.com/crimes.html)

PDF Document from UK Government. (http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/hrdossier.pdf)

[KungFuChiken]

Im not disputing the fact that he oppressed and murdered the Kurdish population. The point im making is the scientific evidence which came from the UN showed that the gas used to kill the Kurds in Halabja didnt come from Iraq, it came from Iran.

The reporting on this whole issue has been completely distorted by the Western media and governments to suit their own ends...... To 'prove' that Saddam was a madman who would kill his own people using WMDs.

Have a look at the map in the first link which shows where Kurds are situated. Bear in mind that as far as Iraqis are concerned, Kurds are not part of them, they are a separate religion altogether (also bear in mind they couldnt give a fawk about nationalism, only religion). The Kurds are not his people, they are outsiders who were helping the enemy, the Iranians. They were also right in the border region between Iran and Iraq, where the fighting was taking place.

If Iraq used chemical weapons against the Iranians, is it hardly surprising that the Kurds were caught in the middle of this?

As I said previously, I would rather believe the scientific evidence than the biased claims of Kurds who had supported Saddam's enemy.

(Disclaimer: I believed, and still believe, we were correct in going to war. I also believe that Saddam was an evil bastard who had to be dealt with. However, I also believe that we have gone in to this conflict completely blind to the problems we are creating. To think that we were going to go in there and gloriously free the Iraqis from oppression and they would love us forever more and shower our troops with sweets and flowers is, however, shockingly naive to the extent that i now find myself questioning my support).

[Fanatic]

LOL,


Western media....so unreliable and so molded to control the masses....every time again. You keep getting lied to every time, and after a while the lie becomes fact and makes the general history books anyway. After this the next generation accepts it as fact and eventualy the clash with other true facts and we go to a religious kind of war again, the good vs the bad, you know the drill.

As a good example of another less known fact:

Remember that 'concentration camp' in Bonsia where the serbs where opressing underfed muslims? This image was on the cover of the 'Times' at the time I believe and dominated the media and political decission making for a few years to come. Well, that whole image was a setup, and it was proved afterwards and documented.

The photo that was shot, was shot from the wrong side of a fence, meaning, if it was a camp the alledged victims where outside of the alledged camp. Secondly, the full footage taken that day clearly shows that one man (the underfed one) was singled out and pushed forward by the group, so the world would see him and draw its conclusions. All the other people around him, where not underfed at all!!!

WHen the media where confronted by these facts after a few years, they entrenched themselfs that even while the image they spread was false.....they did so for a good cause.

What exactly was this good cause? Getting political support to bomb the Serbs (which was a democracy), something that the US wanted so badly? So they justified their actions with something they knew was a lie and fount it perfectly acceptable, cause the enemy was evil.

If you want to considder the media our concience then that means you stop being an individual which can think for himself. You will be spoonfed with information, letting you draw conclusions that would otherwise not be yours.

This is in fact a democracy unside down and is the most proven way to control the masses. Simply by making everyone believe they have a choice and that the choices they made are collectivly theirs. And after every 4-8 years there is a new figure head, that can start with a clean sheet so that most wrongdoings don't play a role anymore in foreign issues.

Democracy whithout proper unpartiated scientific press that is also read by the masses is to the outside world no better then any other dictatorship.

Now please relfect on this and draw ya conclusions....I know I have....people are supid...people suck....people deserve to suffer....no one is to blame but you!!!!

[Snake-Chiken]

nice reading, I have a solution.
Snake can end all this pain just elect me as pres for every country. I swear I wont mass murder anyone. *cough* unless they piss me off.

What you think

[PherdnutChiken]

Both the major papers in Chicago put the Apprentice winner on their front page today. I don't care if the guy is from Chicago and going to oversee the construction of Trump Plaza. With everything going on right now, this is NOT front page news. It's getting increasingly hard to trust any of our media nowadays. It's not that they're necessarily in politician's back pockets. They're just so obsessed with the bottom line that they will tell anything to the public if they think it's what it wants to hear.

[OmegaChiken]

President Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, says a new book on his Iraq policy.

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, journalist Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book, which will be available in book stores next week.

"I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq," Bush is quoted as telling Woodward. "It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war. And I'm not anxious to go to war."


"I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq."
-President Bush, as quoted in "Plan of Attack"

Bush and his aides have denied accusations they were preoccupied with Iraq at the cost of paying attention to the al-Qaida terrorist threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A commission investigating the attacks just concluded several weeks of extraordinary public testimony from high-ranking government officials. One of them, former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, charged the Bush administration's determination to invade Iraq undermined the war on terror.

Woodward's account fleshes out the degree to which some members of the administration, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, were focused on Saddam Hussein from the onset of Bush's presidency and even after the terrorist attacks made the destruction of al-Qaida the top priority.

Woodward says Bush pulled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld aside Nov. 21, 2001 - when U.S. forces and allies were in control of about half of Afghanistan - and asked him what kind of war plan he had on Iraq. When Rumsfeld said it was outdated, Bush told him to get started on a fresh one.

The book says Bush told Rumsfeld to keep quiet about it and when the defense secretary asked to bring CIA Director George Tenet into the planning at some point, the president said not to do so yet.

Even Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was apparently not fully briefed. Woodward said Bush told her that morning he was having Rumsfeld work on Iraq but did not give details.

In an interview two years later, Bush told Woodward that if the news had leaked, it would have caused "enormous international angst and domestic speculation."


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The Bush administration's drive toward war with Iraq raised an international furor anyway, alienating long-time allies who did not believe the White House had made a sufficient case against Saddam. Saddam was toppled a year ago and taken into custody last December. But the central figure of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, remains at large and a threat to the west.

The book says Gen. Tommy Franks, who was in charge of the Afghan war as head of Central Command, uttered a string of obscenities when the Pentagon told him to come up with an Iraq war plan in the midst of fighting another conflict.

Woodward, a Washington Post journalist who wrote an earlier book on Bush's anti-terrorism campaign and broke the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, says Cheney's well-known hawkish attitudes on Iraq were frequently decisive in Bush's decision-making.

Cheney pressed the outgoing Clinton administration to brief Bush on the Iraq threat before he took office, Woodward writes.

In August 2002, when Bush talked publicly of being a patient man who would weigh Iraqi options carefully, the vice president took the administration's Iraq policy on a harder track in a speech declaring the weapons inspections ineffective. Cheney's speech was viewed as the beginning of a campaign to undermine or overthrow Saddam. Woodward said Bush let Cheney make the speech without asking what he would say.

The vice president also figured prominently in an protracted decision March 19, 2003, to strike Iraq before a 48-hour ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to leave the country had expired.

When the CIA and its Iraqi sources reported that Saddam's sons and other family members were at a small palace, and Saddam was on his way to join them, Bush's top advisers debated whether to strike ahead of plan.

Franks was against it, saying it was unfair to move before a deadline announced to the other side, the book says. Rumsfeld and Rice favored the early strike, and Secretary of State Colin Powell leaned that way.

But Bush did not make his decision until he had cleared everyone out of the Oval Office except the vice president. "I think we ought to go for it," Cheney is quoted as saying. Bush did.

U.S. forces unleashed bombs and cruise missiles, blanketing the compound but missing the palace. Tenet called the White House before dawn to say the Iraqi leader had been killed. But his optimism was premature. Saddam was alive.

there ya go rilla read'em and weep ;)

[Papa Theif]

Ok I haven't read all of this, so if I am repeating anything live with it.

As for Saddam, people have been bitching about him for ever and talking about doing something. UN sanctions were not working, his people were still half starving and he was still maintaining the largest army in the region. So why do people get pissed off when Bush went in and finished what his father should have.

1. We didn't ask anyone permission, Bush was curteous to say, "Hey we are going in, you want to join in and reap the profits"
2. Yes it is about profits, but it is more than just oil, american and allied companies are being paid to rebuild. Are allies and us spill blood, why shouldn't we get first rights.
3. Something that most people seemed to have missed is the fact that the United States Military as a whole hasn't had a good shake down in decades. Iraq gave us the chance to work out the bugs on our new technology in one of the most detremental enviroments.
4. Advertising, we showed the world that our new technology can beat a larger army on their own turf. Hell even the Russians said it was good advertising for them too.
5. WMD, well shit being an american and talking to most other americans, we really didn't give a crap whether he had them right then and there, because we knew he could whip up a batch an time he damn well please and hide it anywhere in that friggin desert.
6. I think what scares most nations the most, we took a stab at someone without permission from the UN or Euroblock or anyone else, and we did it whether our reasons were truly sound or not. That in its self has to have alot of other nations thinking; If the US gets a but up their ass about us, will we be next? Which is a good question.

For all you Bush haters, look on the bright side, he can only be in office a max of 8 years and that is only if someone doesn't find a way to impeach his ass.

[KungFuChiken]

Edited: There's no point disussing bile like that above :-(

[PherdnutChiken]

Kung Fu, generally when chikens and our buddies disagree we make a point of providing debate, not calling each other's posts "bile." Well, unless it has something do with Bast, Dysed, Fan, and crossdressing or doing the dirty with inflatable objects.

[DysedChiken]

mmmmm Inflatable dates.

YEEEEHAW!!!!

Oh and Pherd...I resemble that remark.

[BillyTheChiken]

Dysed... don't make me send you more links of toys! You know I will, you filthy chiken!

BAWK!

P.S. How'd you like that last one?

[Fanatic]

LOL

[peekaboochiken]

bawk

i saw a clip of ol gorgie boy at his press conference and someone that inept in charge is kinda scary, more scary is that the US public voted for him :D

you guys have way to much suger intake :p

[KungFuChiken]

@ Pherd: Roger that. Apologies if I offended.

I find it hard to believe that opinions such as that can be posted anywhere without people so much as batting an eyelid. If this is peoples opinions, I'll stay out of discussions like this in the future.

[Snake-Chiken]

Bush has an IQ of 91, far more than I gave him credit for! Then again its lower than reagans who was more or less a walking talking zombie


http://www.lovenstein.org/report/

LOVENSTEIN INSTITUTE


Presidential IQ Report


WASHINGTON --In a report published Monday, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania detailed its findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the education community on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others.

According to statements in the report, there have been twelve presidents over the past 50 years, from F. D. Roosevelt to G. W. Bush who were all rated based on scholarly achievements, writings that they alone produced without aid of staff, their ability to speak with clarity, and several other psychological factors which were then scored in the Swanson/Crain system of intelligence ranking. The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points:

147 Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
132 Harry Truman (D)
122 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
174 John F. Kennedy (D)
126 Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
155 Richard M. Nixon (R)
121 Gerald Ford (R)
175 James E. Carter (D)
105 Ronald Reagan (R)
98 George H. W. Bush (R)
182 William J. Clinton (D)
91 George W. Bush (R)

The six Republican presidents of the past 50 years had an average IQ of 115.5, with President Nixon having the highest IQ, at 155. President G. W. Bush was rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91.

The six Democrat presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126.

No president other than Carter (D) has released his actual IQ, 176. Among comments made concerning the specific testing of President GW Bush, his low ratings were due to his apparent difficulty to command the English language in public statements, his limited use of vocabulary (6,500 words for Bush versus an average of 11,000 words for other presidents), his lack of scholarly achievements other than a basic MBA, and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual basis.

The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis. "All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt, and most had written several white papers during their education or early careers..

Not so with President Bush," Dr. Lovenstein said. "He has no published works or writings, so in many ways that made it more difficult to arrive at an assessment. We had to rely more heavily on transcripts of his unscripted public speaking."

The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist. This study was commissioned on February 13, 2001, and released on July 9, 2001, to subscribing member universities and organizations within the education community.


On Iraq heres what they had to say

http://www.lovenstein.org/iraq/

The War in Iraq
Our men and women in uniform are still paying with their lives
The American people deserve the facts



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






March 5, 2004

The rushed decision to invade Iraq cannot all be blamed on flawed intelligence. If we view these events simply as an intelligence failure – rather than a larger failure of decision-making and leadership – we will learn the wrong lessons.

The more we find out, the clearer it becomes that any failure in the intelligence itself is dwarfed by the Administration's manipulation of the intelligence in making the case for war. Specific warnings from the intelligence community were consistently ignored as the Administration rushed toward war.

We now know that from the moment President Bush took office, Iraq was given high priority as unfinished business from the first Bush Administration.

According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's account in Ron Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty, Iraq was on the agenda at the very first meeting of the National Security Council, just ten days after President Bush's inauguration in 2001. At that meeting, the President quickly – and wrongly – concluded that the U.S. could not do much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He said we should "pull out of that situation," and then turned to a discussion of "how Iraq is destabilizing the region."

Secretary O'Neill remembers: "Getting Hussein was now the Administration's focus. From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.'"


By the end of February 2001, the talk on Iraq was mostly about how – and how quickly – to get rid of Saddam Hussein. President Bush was clearly frustrated with what the intelligence community was providing. According to Secretary O'Neill, on May 16, 2001, he and the other principals of the National Security Council met with the President to discuss the Middle East. Tenet presented his intelligence report, and told the President that it was still only speculation whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, or was even starting a program to build such weapons.

Secretary O'Neill says: "Everything Tenet sent up to Bush and Cheney about Iraq was very judicious and precisely qualified. The President was clearly very interested in weapons or weapons programs – and frustrated about our weak intelligence capability – but Tenet was clearly being careful to say, here's the little that we know and the great deal that we don't. That wouldn't change, and I read those CIA reports for two years," said O'Neill.

Then came 9/11. In the months that followed, the war in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden had obvious priority. Al Qaeda was clearly the most imminent threat to our national security. In fact, in his testimony to Congress in February 2001, one month after President Bush's inauguration and seven months before 9/11, Tenet had said: "Osama bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat." That testimony emphasized the clear danger of bin Laden in light of the specific attacks in previous years on American citizens and American institutions.

In February 2002, five months after 9/11, Tenet testified: "Last year, I told you that Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network were the most immediate and serious threat this country faced. This remains true despite the progress we have made in Afghanistan and in disrupting the network elsewhere."

Even during the buildup to the war in Iraq, in February 2003, Tenet again testified, "the threat from Al Qaeda remains ... We place no limitations on our expectations on what Al Qaeda might do to survive … Al Qaeda is living in the expectation of resuming the offensive."

In his testimony last week to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tenet repeated his earlier warnings. He said again that Al Qaeda is not defeated and that "We are still at war…This is a learning organization that remains committed to attacking the United States, its friends and allies."




Tenet never used that kind of strong language to describe the threat from Iraq. Yet despite all the clear and consistent warnings about Al Qaeda, by the summer of 2002, President Bush was ready for war with Iraq. The war in Afghanistan was no longer in the headlines or at the center of attention. Bin Laden was hard to find, the economy was in trouble, and so was the President's approval rating in the polls.

Karl Rove had tipped his hand earlier by stating that the war on terrorism could bring political benefits as well. The President's undeniable goal was to convince the American people that war was necessary – and necessary soon, because soon-to-be-acquired nuclear weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein could easily be handed off to terrorists.

This conclusion was not supported by the facts, but the intelligence could be retrofitted to support it. Greg Thielmann, former Director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, put it bluntly last July. He said, "Some of the fault lies with the performance of the intelligence community, but most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided." He said, "They surveyed the data, and picked out what they liked. The whole thing was bizarre. The Secretary of Defense had this huge Defense Intelligence Agency, and he went around it." Thielmann also said, "This administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude, its top-down use of intelligence: we know the answers; give us the intelligence to support those answers…Going down the list of administration deficiencies, or distortions, one has to talk about, first and foremost, the nuclear threat being hyped," he said.

David Albright, the former weapons inspector with the International Atomic Energy Agency, put it this way: "Leaders will use worst case assessments that point to nuclear weapons to generate political support because they know people fear nuclear weapons so much."

Even though they make semantic denials, there is no doubt that senior Administration officials were suggesting the threat from Iraq was imminent.

At a roundtable discussion with European journalists last month, Secretary Rumsfeld insisted: "I never said imminent threat."

In fact, Secretary Rumsfeld had told the House Armed Services Committee on September 18, 2002, "…Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent – that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain."

In February 2003, with war only weeks away, then Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan was asked why NATO allies should support Turkey's request for military assistance against Iraq. His clear response was, "This is about an imminent threat." In May 2003, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether we went to war "because we said WMD were a direct and imminent threat to the United States." Fleischer responded, "Absolutely."

What else could National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice have been suggesting, other than an imminent threat – an extremely imminent threat – when she said on September 8, 2002, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

President Bush himself may not have used the word "imminent", but he carefully chose strong and loaded words about the nature of the threat – words that the intelligence community never used – to persuade and prepare the nation to go to war against Iraq.

In the Rose Garden on October 2, 2002, as Congress was preparing to vote on authorizing the war, the President said the Iraqi regime "is a threat of unique urgency."

In a speech in Cincinnati on October 7, President Bush echoed Condoleezza Rice's image of nuclear devastation: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

At a political appearance in New Mexico on October 28, 2002, after Congress had voted to authorize war, and a week before the election, President Bush said Iraq is a "real and dangerous threat."

At a NATO summit on November 20, 2002, President Bush said Iraq posed a "unique and urgent threat."

In Fort Hood, Texas on January 3, 2003, President Bush called the Iraqi regime a "grave threat."

Nuclear weapons. Mushroom cloud. Unique and urgent threat. Real and dangerous threat. Grave threat. This was the Administration's rallying cry for war. But those were not the words of the intelligence community. The community recognized that Saddam was a threat, but it never suggested the threat was imminent, or immediate, or urgent.

In his speech last month at Georgetown, CIA Director Tenet stated that, despite attempts to acquire a nuclear capability, Saddam was many years away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Tenet's precise words were: "We said Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon, and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009."

The acquisition of enough nuclear material is an extremely difficult task for a country seeking nuclear weapons. Tenet bluntly stated that the intelligence community had "detected no such acquisition" by Saddam. The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate also outlined the disagreement in the intelligence community over whether the notorious aluminum tubes were intended for nuclear weapons or not. Tenet clearly distanced himself from the Administration's statements about the urgency of the threat from Iraq in his speech at Georgetown. But he stopped short of saying the Administration distorted the intelligence or relied on other sources to make the case for war. He said he only gave the President the CIA's daily assessment of the intelligence, and the rest he did not know.

Tenet needs to explain to Congress and the country why he waited until last month – nearly a year after the war started – to set the record straight. Intelligence analysts had long been frustrated about the way intelligence was being misused to justify war. In February 2003, an official described the feelings of some analysts in the intelligence agencies to the New York Times, saying "I think there is also a sense of disappointment with the community's leadership that they are not standing up for them at a time when the intelligence is obviously being politicized."

Why wasn't CIA Director Tenet correcting the President and the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense a year ago, when it could have made a difference, when it could have prevented a needless war, when it could have saved so many lives?

It was Vice President Cheney who first laid out the trumped up argument for war with Iraq to an unsuspecting public. In a speech on August 26, 2002, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he asserted: "…We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons…Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon." As we now know, the intelligence community was far from certain. Yet the Vice President had been convinced.

On September 8, 2002, Cheney was even more emphatic about Saddam. He said, "[We] do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon." The intelligence community was deeply divided about the aluminum tubes, but Cheney was absolutely certain.

Where was the CIA Director when the Vice President was going nuclear about Saddam going nuclear? Did Tenet fail to convince the policy makers to cool their overheated rhetoric? Did he even try to convince them?

One month later, on the eve of the watershed vote by Congress to authorize the war, President Bush said it even more vividly. He said, "Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes…which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed…Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists."


In fact, as we now know, the intelligence community was far from unified on Iraq's nuclear threat. The Administration attempted to conceal that fact by classifying the information and the dissents within the intelligence community until after the war, even while making dramatic and excessive public statements about the immediacy of the danger.

In a February 2004 article in the Atlantic Monthly, Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst who supported the war, said, "…Time after time senior Administration officials discussed only the worst case and least likely scenario, and failed to mention the intelligence community's most likely scenario." In a January interview, Pollack added, "Only the Administration has access to all the information available to various agencies of the U.S. government – and withholding or downplaying some of that information for its own purposes is a betrayal of that responsibility."

In October 2002, the intelligence agencies jointly issued a National Intelligence Estimate stating that "most agencies" believed that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program after inspectors left in 1998, and that, if left unchecked, Iraq "probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."

The State Department's intelligence bureau, however, said the "available evidence" was inadequate to support that judgment. It refused to predict when "Iraq could acquire a nuclear device or weapon."

The National Intelligence Estimate cited a foreign government report that, as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of nuclear material to Iraq. The Estimate also said, "reports indicate that Iraq has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo." The State Department's intelligence bureau, however, responded that claims of Iraq seeking to purchase nuclear material from Africa were "highly dubious." The CIA sent two memos to the White House stressing strong doubts about those claims.

But the following January, the President included the claims about Africa in his State of the Union Address, and conspicuously cited the British government as the source of that intelligence.

Information about nuclear weapons was not the only intelligence distorted by the Administration. On the question of whether Iraq was pursuing a chemical weapons program, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded in September 2002 that "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has – or will – establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."

That same month, however, Secretary Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Saddam has chemical-weapons stockpiles.



He said that "we do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction," that Saddam "has amassed large clandestine stocks of chemical weapons," that "he has stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons," and that Iraq has "active chemical, biological and nuclear programs." He was wrong on all counts.

Yet the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate actually quantified the size of the stockpiles, finding that "although we have little specific information on Iraq's CW stockpile, Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons and possibly as much as 500 metric tons of CW agents – much of it added in the last year." In his speech at the United Nations on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Powell went further, calling the 100-500 metric ton stockpile a "conservative estimate."

Secretary Rumsfeld made an even more explicit assertion in his March 30, 2003, interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." When asked about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, he said, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

The second major claim in the Administration's case for war was the linkage between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Significantly here as well, the Intelligence Estimate did not find a cooperative relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. On the contrary, it stated only that such a relationship might happen if Saddam were "sufficiently desperate" – in other words, if America went to war. But the estimate placed "low confidence" that, even in desperation, Saddam would give weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda.

A year before the war began, senior Al Qaeda leaders themselves had rejected a link with Saddam. The New York Times reported last June that a top Al Qaeda planner and recruiter captured in March 2002 told his questioners last year that "the idea of working with Mr. Hussein's government had been discussed among Al Qaeda leaders, but Osama bin Laden had rejected such proposals." According to the Times, an Al Qaeda chief of operations had also told interrogators that the group did not work with Saddam.

Mel Goodman, a CIA analyst for 20 years, put it bluntly: "Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were enemies. Bin Laden considered and said that Saddam was the socialist infidel. These were very different kinds of individuals competing for power in their own way and Saddam Hussein made very sure that Al Qaeda couldn't function in Iraq."

In February 2003, investigators at the FBI told the New York Times they were baffled by the Administration's insistence on a solid link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. One investigator said: "We've been looking at this hard for more than a year and you know what, we just don't think it's there."

But President Bush was not deterred. He was relentless in using America's fears after the devastating 9/11 tragedy. He drew a clear link – and drew it repeatedly – between Al Qaeda and Saddam.

In a September 25, 2002, statement at the White House, President Bush flatly declared: "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

In his State of the Union Address in January 2003, President Bush said, "Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda," and that he could provide "lethal viruses" to a "shadowy terrorist network."

Two weeks later, in his radio address to the nation, a month before the war began, President Bush described the ties in detail, saying, "Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks …"

He said: "Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document-forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. An Al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad."

In fact, there was no operational link and no clear and persuasive pattern of ties between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda. That fact should have been abundantly clear to the President. Iraq and Al Qaeda had diametrically opposing views of the world.

In the march to war, the President exaggerated the threat anyway. It was not subtle. It was not nuanced. It was pure, unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda justified immediate war.

Why would the Administration go to such lengths to go to war? Was it trying to change the subject from its failed economic policy, the corporate scandals, and its failed effort to capture Osama bin Laden? The only imminent threat was the November Congressional election. The politics of the election trumped the stubborn facts.

Early in the Bush Administration, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill had raised concerns about politics pervading the process in the White House.



Comparing the Bush Administration and previous Republican Administrations, he said, referring to Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Karen Hughes: "The biggest difference … is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis – and Karl, Dick, Karen and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics."

In the late winter and early spring of 2002, in the aftermath of the Enron and other corporate scandals, as Ron Suskind, the author of the O'Neill book wrote, "…Rove told numerous administration officials that the poll data was definitive: the scandals were hurting the President, a cloud in an otherwise blue sky for the soaring, post-Afghanistan Bush."

The evidence so far leads to only one conclusion. What happened was not merely a failure of intelligence, but the result of manipulation and distortion of the intelligence and selective use of unreliable intelligence to justify a decision to go to war. The Administration had made up its mind, and would not let stubborn facts stand in the way.

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired Air Force intelligence officer who served in the Pentagon during the buildup to the war, said: "It wasn't intelligence -- it was propaganda…they'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, usually by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together."

As it now appears, the Iraqi expatriates who had close ties to the Pentagon and were so eager for the war may well have been the source of the hyped intelligence. As Walter Pincus reported today in the Washington Post, "The Bush Administration's prewar assertion that Saddam Hussein had a fleet of mobile labs that could produce bioweapons rested largely on information from an Iraqi defector working with another government who was never interviewed by U.S. intelligence officers."

The Iraqi exiles have even begun to brag about it.

The Pentagon's favorite Iraqi dissident, Ahmed Chalabi, is actually proud of what happened. "We are heroes in error," Chalabi recently said. "As far as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush Administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on our swords, if he wants."

Our men and women in uniform are still paying with their lives for this misguided war in Iraq. CIA Director Tenet could perform no greater service to the armed forces, to the American people, and to our country, than to set the record straight, and state unequivocally what is so clearly the truth: the Bush Administration misrepresented the facts to justify the war.

America went to war in Iraq because President Bush insisted that nuclear weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein and his ties to Al Qaeda were too dangerous to ignore. Congress never would have voted to authorize the war if we had known the facts.

The Bush Administration is obviously digging in its heels against any further serious investigation of the reasons we went to war.

The Administration's highest priority is to prevent any more additional stubborn facts about this fateful issue from coming to light before the election in November.

This debate will go on anyway in Congress and in communities across the country. The most important decision any President makes is the decision on war or peace. No President who misleads the country on the need for war deserves to be reelected. A President who does so must be held accountable. The last thing our nation needs is a sign on the desk in the Oval Office in the White House that says, "The buck doesn't stop here any more."

[DrunkenOne]

How anyone can defend this man I don't know.

They're Just Coming Out Of The Woodwork ...
George Bush Sr.'s former Assistant Secretary of Housing writes an open letter to Condoleezza Rice, expanding on four not-so-subtle points:

You are a liar.

Your motives are transparent.

You are going down.

You are guilty of criminal gross negligence.
Read the entire letter here: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FIT404A.html

CRAZY SHIT!!!

[OmegaChiken]

omg! drunk's alive?! :poked: