You are herecontent / Evidence of War Lies
Evidence of War Lies
By David Swanson
Testimony for International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, Riverside Church, New York, Jan 20-22, 2006. Thanks to Jonathan Schwarz and Bob Fertik for assistance.
[Powerpoint Slide 1]
Were I to list all the pieces of evidence that Bush took us to war with lies, we'd have lost tens of thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars before I finished. So, I'll give you a short version. But we're killing people every day and churning through tens of thousands of dollars a second, so even this isn't going to be cheap.
[Powerpoint Slide 2]
Congressman John Conyers has produced a 273-page report that focuses on this topic. Congressman Henry Waxman has put online a searchable database of lies. You can find these and numerous other collections of evidence at www.afterdowningstreet.org Some of the best sources of this material are books. Much has been reported in books, as well as on the internet and the radio that has never made it into newspapers or television. Larry Everest's book is one of the best at making this case, and it was written prior to the surfacing of the strongest piece of evidence, the one I'm going to talk about, the Downing Street Minutes.
While Bush's war plans (as well as – according to recent reporting by Jason Leopold on truthout.org – his illegal spying on Americans) predate Sept. 11, 2001, that date is pivotal. The crimes of that day were used to justify another crime.
On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing Bush to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons." The resolution also said "Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution." That Nixon-era resolution restricts the president's ability to take the nation to war without Congressional approval.
[Powerpoint Slide 3]
On Sept. 25, 2001, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote a memo stating, "The President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the States that harbor or support them, whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of September 11." The memo says that the president's powers are "unreviewable."
[Powerpoint Slide 4]
The Downing Street Minutes that were leaked to the media this past spring were accompanied by seven other secret documents, one a background paper circulated in preparation for the meeting that the minutes recorded on July 23, 2002. The other six were memos exchanged by top British officials in March, 2002.
The March memos make clear that Bush had determined to go to war and was building a case around WMDs and ties to 9-11, a case that the British found unconvincing. They also make clear that Blair had agreed to go along with the war but was seeking to persuade Bush to invest more effort in winning over public opinion and in "the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors." That is: to give an ultimatum to Hussein that he would refuse – a refusal that could be used to argue that the war was legal.
By July, 2002, Blair still had concerns. We have known since last May that on July 23, 2002, as recorded in the Downing Street Minutes, Blair was briefed by Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, about talks he had recently had with members of the Bush administration.
[Powerpoint Slide 5]
But it was only this month, with the publication of James Risen's book "State of War" that we learned that Dearlove was in part reporting on a CIA-MI6 summit he had attended with other top MI6 officials at CIA headquarters on Saturday, July 20, 2002, and that, according to "a former senior CIA officer," the meeting was held "at the urgent request of the British." CIA officials believe "Blair had ordered Dearlove to go to Washington to find out what the Bush administration was really thinking about Iraq." During the day-long summit, Dearlove met privately with CIA head George Tenet for an hour and a half.
[Powerpoint Slide 6]
Risen is a New York Times reporter. It was this same book that compelled the New York Times to publish the story of unauthorized NSA spying. No U.S. corporate media outlet has yet published the story of the CIA-MI6 meeting. It is unclear for how many months the New York Times refused to publish that story prior to the release of Risen's book, but it clearly intends to maintain its silence.
[Powerpoint Slide 7]
Three days after that meeting, and months before Bush went to Congress or the UN or the public for approval of a war, Blair and Dearlove met at #10 Downing Street, and the minutes of that meeting are recorded as the Downing Street Minutes or Downing Street Memo. Also taking part in the meeting were:
Prime Minister Tony Blair
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
Then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith
Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee John Scarlett
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of Defence Staff, head of Britain’s armed forces
Sir David Manning, a foreign policy advisor
and Matthew Rycroft, a Downing Street foreign policy aide who took the minutes
The Downing Street Minutes are short, to the point, and shocking. They make clear that
1. Bush had already decided to go to war long before approaching Congress or the public or the UN about it, and had already started the attack with increased bombings;
2. Bush had already decided to lie about weapons of mass destruction and ties to 9-11;
3. The Brits were concerned by the illegality of an aggressive war, but the Bush Administration was not;
4. Going to the UN was an attempt to justify the war, and the hope was to craft an ultimatum that Saddam Hussein would reject;
5. The focus of the Bush and Blair administrations was on selling the war to the public, and not at all on trying to avoid it;
6. The Bush and Blair administrations were aware that Iraq was no threat, and were willing to attack Iraq precisely because it posed no serious threat of fighting back.
[Powerpoint Slide 8]
When the Downing Street Minutes were first published by the Sunday London Times, shortly before the 2005 British election, the Blair Administration chose not to deny their authenticity. Shortly after the Minutes were released, sources within both the Bush and Blair Administrations confirmed their accuracy to the press. A former senior US official told Knight Ridder that the Downing Street Minutes were "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired." Two senior British officials, who asked not to be further identified, told Newsweek in separate interviews that they had no reason to question the authenticity of the Downing Street Minutes.
The minutes begin with the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee John Scarlett reporting on plans for regime change in Iraq. While publicly the Bush-Blair administrations were saying they wanted to avoid war and were only concerned by Iraq's alleged WMDs, privately they were focused on regime change and saw war as the only way to effect it.
[Powerpoint Slide 9]
The Minutes then move to Dearlove's report on his meeting with Tenet and the CIA. Dearlove is referred to as "C."
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Dearlove's conclusions are corroborated by other sources. We know from independent reporting that Bush had a war with Iraq in mind even prior to his first term in office, as did the Project for a New American Century. Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says Bush was planning war and regime change in January 2001. In March of 2002, Bush was reported as saying "F--- Saddam, we're taking him out." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was reported as planning an attack on Iraq just hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, airplanes hit. National security official Richard Clarke says Bush told him on Sept. 12th to find reasons to attack Iraq. Republican Senator Trent Lott says the Bush Administration was focused on regime change in Iraq shortly after 9-11. On September 19 and 20th, the Defense Policy Board met at the Pentagon and discussed ousting Hussein. On September 20th, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, wrote a memo advocating attacking Iraq, which he referred to as "deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq." Also, on September 20th, it is reported that Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror. Bush replied, "I agree with you Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."
In February 2002, Senator Bob Graham told the Council on Foreign Relations that a military commander had said to him: "Senator, we have stopped fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq."
That Bush had decided to "justify" the war "by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD" is borne out by the entire "marketing campaign," which fixated on these twin justifications. The Bush Administration formed the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in August 2002 to market the war. The Administration waited to introduce the WHIG's product to the public until September 2002, because, as White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told The New York Times,"[y]ou don't introduce new products in August."
That "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" is confirmed by the multi-layered effort by the Administration to pressure officials within the Administration to find links between Saddam and September 11 and to manipulate intelligence officials and agencies into overstating WMD threats. Further evidence includes the forgery of documents purporting to show that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium, and the retribution exacted against those who questioned that lie (including Ambassador Joseph Wilson and IAEA Director General and now Nobel Peace Laureate Mohammed El Baradei). Just this week, the New York Times reported on a newly released State Department memo that, in early 2002, had debunked the claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium in Niger.
[Powerpoint Slide 10]
The Downing Street Minutes go on to record that Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of Defence Staff (referred to as CDS), reported that military planners would brief CENTCOM, Rumsfeld, and Bush in early August. After detailing military options for the attack on Iraq, according to the Minutes,
"The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections."
That the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to pressure Iraq has been subsequently confirmed by numerous accounts. As reported in the Sunday London Times, in May 2002, with a conditional agreement in place with Britain for war, the US and UK began to conduct a bombing campaign in Iraq. This was 10 months before the Bush Administration supposedly determined that all diplomatic means had been exhausted and six months before Congressional authorization for the use of force. According to a document found by RawStory.com, Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley said that the "spikes of activity" were part of a covert air war that "laid the foundation" for the war.
[Powerpoint Slide 11]
The Minutes continue:
"The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."
The Minutes go on to relate that the Attorney General explained that regime change is not a legal basis for military action, but Blair said that "it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors."
As planned here, the US and the UK did in fact ask for UN authorization to demand the reintroduction of weapons inspectors, which they received on November 8, 2002. But they were unable to "wrongfoot Saddam" or legalize the war, because he accepted the terms eight days later, and inspections resumed on November 27th. On March 18, 2003, the inspectors left Iraq on the advice of the United States. On July 14, 2003, Bush – pretending that the wrongfooting of Saddam had actually worked – lied in response to a question from a Washington Post reporter by saying: "The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him 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..."
[Powerpoint Slide 12]
When Bush and Blair were asked about the Downing Street Minutes last summer, their main response was that after the meeting recorded in the Minutes, they had gone to the United Nations in an effort to avoid war. But the evidence is clear that going to the UN was an attempt to legalize a war that they had already decided upon. When this failed, when an avenue to avoid war opened up in the form of new inspections, and when the UN refused to authorize the war, Bush and Blair launched the war anyway.
Finally, the Minutes state that the Chief of Defence Staff said
"The military were continuing to ask lots of questions. For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? [Manning] said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary."
This section suggests that at least some in the room believed Hussein might actually have some sort of WMDs, although – as already stated – they did not believe he was threatening anyone, and they believed that whatever WMDs he had, they were less than those of Libya, North Korea, and Iran.
[Powerpoint Slide 13]
Here's another date: March 18, 2003
This is not just the date on which inspectors left Iraq. It is also the date on which Bush sent Congress a formal determination, as required by the Joint Resolution on Iraq passed by Congress in October 2002, that military action against Iraq was necessary to "protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." Bush sent Congress a one-page letter and a nine-page report.
The report claimed that Iraq possessed biological and chemical weapons, as well as proscribed missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles with which to deliver them, and that Iraq was reconstituting a nuclear weapons program.
It further claimed that members of al Qaeda were in Iraq, that Iraq was aiding and harboring other international terrorist organizations, and that Iraq had provided training to al Qaeda.
It is a felony to lie to Congress.
[Powerpoint Slide 14]
More on the Commission:
http://www.bushcommission.org
- Login to post comments
-
- Email this page
- Printer-friendly version
Bu$h more WAR LIES - PROTEST PAINTING with words
Free 2 copy, print out and Pass Around
http://www.RogerART.com
Scroll Down,
Thank U, RogerART.com
I grew up with Dick C. and know GWB very well.
You guys are nothing more than Pro Communist
very ignorant or "Acuse others as you are,it
works" Karl Marx propagandaist. Everybody knows
where the WMD are. If you guys don't you're
not only blind but believe your own propaganda.
You know Putin's covert opps came and got them
so they could recoup their $8 billion or at
least some of it before GWB went into Iraq. You
know this very well! What's more you know John
Conyers is probably connected to the same Mafia
Clinton was. I could go on for hours, but you're
just not worth it. I'm sick of seeing your 3 to
5 year old photos on the news acting like they
just happened. I'm sick of your lies. Get a Life
a real one!
Pro Eagle
We used to call guys like you the "Lunatic Fringe." Now you are putting out your stupid rantings as if they were common knowledge. I don't mind idiots, but I don't want one running the country. And listening to you, makes me realize that there is no debate on Iraq, no matter how much you mouth off.
That's funny. My gullible friends swear they are in Pakistan. Hope you all get your stories straight.
The leader of this mass murder has been captured by American Forces and executed. This very man who helped to finance the likes of those responsible for killing 3 thousand of our people (before we were in Iraq) is gone - what a tremendous acheivement. Only losing approx 3 thousand of our dear soliders is an amazing national honor. The likes of Howard Zinn, who I heard with my own ears say that even WW2 wasnt a justified war will never be appeased. If the policies of Ed Kennedy were adopted not only would Saddam be in filling mass graves in Iraq today and funding killers against us but he would also have control of Kuwait. Who gets the credit for us not being attacked since 9/11?
3000-JAN.1,2007 - 6000-20--.
Where are the WMD then smartass? How come all the soldiers I know who fought in Iraq believe it's a bullshit war? Bush is by FAR the worst president America has ever had.
Who promised you we would find anything after we precision bombed every military facility in the country and then his people looted it down to and including the plumbing? NOBODY with a sense of reason would expect Saddam to just leave something around for us to find, and that is why you keep demanding to see it- you don't want the truth. The danger is not an inanimate object, but the leader who used them without hesitation. The media has perpetuated this false expectation merely because it is a never ending story, a dream come true for job security.
Understand this: Desert Storm dishonored Saddam Hussein, and as an Arab Male he would NEVER be content to be submissive and until the day he died would seek to spit in our eye in any way posssible. It doesn't natter what we found, because he could simply make more.
Containment was eroding and if you people pretend to care about human life it is preposterous to think sanctions were a permanent solution.
As for the Downing St. memo? Well I hope Bush had decided to go to war by the time he went to the UN and Congress. You don't start up something like this half heartedly, and it was of the utmost importance we stop allowing Saddam to call the shots. Remember those "lines in the sand" of Desert Storm? Would you let your kids get away with that kind of ****?
You know what Iraq had to do with 9/11? EVERYTHING.
US policy actions on Iraq since 1990 were 2 of the 3 grievances cited by Osama Bin Laden. Our need for petroleum drives our policies and the first anti-war activist I meet who utilizes a bicycle instead of a car as much as I do will attain credibility in my eyes. Until I meet one I will respectfully ask you to stop this selfish detached obstruction of policy which provides for all our needs.
I think you are full of pure crap and are trying to see how many bees fly out of the hive while you agitate it. But if you do know them, I would not be to proud and would do all that I could to keep my name away from the people that are steeling your rights and destroying the Constitution that you have enjoyed. It will be a sad day for you when you no longer can write what you want on sites like this without getting arrested for speaking your mind, Yes, this too is in the sights of these people to stop all that will not comply with their rules and their laws that no longer are controlled and governed.
I am sure happy the they are your friends and not mine.
Yopu know I fully agree with you about the loss of our liberties and the furthering of the grasp of the power elite on the population. I am sorry to admit to having been a firsthand witness to the NWO secret police's enforcement teams as they use high tech electronic harrassment methods to rid the communities of what THEY have determined to be "undesirables" in their new vision of the world- communism for the masses, with pervertedly extreme capitalism for themselves.
Still, I'm not going to stoop to letting ideology cloud the issues as you seem to have. There are truths which are undeniable, and hating on Bush and his handlers for the elitist power grabs does not diminish the problem of Saddam Hussein's obsession for conquest, revenge, and vanity, and how this imperiled our economic future. By distorting these truths, and making an issue of the war to attack Bush for OTHER, more legitimate issues that may be harder to prove, you are simply making it much easier for him to get away with ALL of it- as people like me, who have extensively researched the Iraq war and its justifications, have a hard time siding with the simpletons whose parroting of mindless talking points like "we were lied to!" or "it was a war for oil!" (well no ****, do ya think?) are so intellectually repulsive we've no choice but defend Bush than play on the stupid team.
Even if the whole thing ends up enriching Bush and Cheney, that hardly means that it was not in the interests of all Americans that we remove Saddam and secure the flow of Persian Gulf petroleum, prevent the loss of dollar hegemony on the world petroleum market, and continue US imperialistic domination of the middle east. To suggest otherwise is immature and detached. I hate Bush and his cronies for what they will do to me, and others like me who don't fit in the NWO mold. Its relationship to the war is no more relevant than saying we shouldn't have gone to Iraq because of Katrina. Idiotic.
YOUR GOOFBALLS....
Given this precedent of "Deception To Make War" coupled with the increasing media focus on Iran, what are the possibilities and probabilities that the next CIA/MOSSAD/MI5 "False Flag" operation will entail:
1. Taking either an old Soviet Nuke or an Israeli nuke and smuggling it across the border into Iran
2. Detonating it
3. Use the compromised American Media to "market" this as proof that the Iranians ARE pursuing a "nookular" program because they just "tested" one
4. Establish this as a Machiavellian pretext for another pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign country, overthrowing their government, seizing their assets, and insuring their oil (BushCo's Oil) will be traded in American (Federal Reserve) Dollars and not Euros.
5. Seizing their independent banking system and bringing it into the Centralize World Banking system
Cui bono? Who would benefit from a nuke going off in Iran within the next couple of months, kidz?
(And thanks again Karl Rove & Company for outing Valarie Plame and the entire organization that was tracking the old soviet nukes . . . we are now flying blind thanks to you . . . you are one messed up frat brat, dude . . . and you BushCo assholes have the damn gall to say I am not fit to teach for MY government anymore because of my "Liberal" beliefs)
"Got to be free to do what I want
Walk if I want, talk if I want
Got to be free to say what I want
Make what I want and play what I want
As free as the birds up in the sky
As free as the bugs and the spiders and flies
I don't know how but I'm gonna try
I've just got to be free"
- Got To Be Free by The Kinks from Lola vs. Powerman & MoneyGoRound
peace.
It's simply a matter of having a really skewed set of facts you're basing your opinions on. "Liberal beliefs" might entail an open mind, receptive to the ideas of others, willing to accept them with your own for progressive improvement of society....
Never mind the preposterous speculation we are going to set off a nuke in Iran. Is this what you fill kids' minds with, the idea that our government does such things? That's not a liberal belief, I think the word is "nutboy", or a thousand variances. However what motivated this reply was the Valeris Plame comment.
Joe Wilson "outed" Valerie Plame, nobody else. His actions beginning in May 2003, telling his embellished fantasy story to no less than 29 media outlets (before the backpedalling Op-Ed) were to blame, and no CIA agent would have been allowed a kiss-and-tell tour like that. This is why Plame's "offered his name up for the job" involvement was pivotal, and her interference led to Cheney not having his question answered.
And here is how DUMB the "plame was outed" position is:
If Cheney was going to use the yellowcake issue to lie us into a war... THEN WHY DID HE UTILIZE THE NORMAL CHANNELS OF THE CIA TO TRY AND VET THAT INFORMATION OUT? The very people who tried to accuse Cheney of lying us into a war were actually responsible for him not finding out that that particular aspect of the Niger story was groundless.
Wilson and Plame were looking for a promotion from civil servant to politician. His story was revealed by bipartisan Senate inquiry to be riddled with falsehoods.
One thing you did say I agree with: "Compromised American Media"
They've kept this silly "Valerie Plame, victim of the white house" story going for their own job security, even people like you who appear somewhat intelligent are still perpetuating it even with such obvious faults within.
It is without reservation that I write to your forum, and I do not normally write this type of thing. I am trying to understand impeaching a President who is condemned by a body of self-righteous people not able to know the facts – i.e. people without security clearances? The secrets this country has are only for the President or his appointees - and sometimes not even that - we will not let secrets be known and spies and informants and ongoing operations be in jeopardy because somebody wants to know if the President is a liar. How ignorant you all are. We elected this man to be our Commander in Chief - let's not turn into melting daisies the minute the going gets tough. You are sounding French – as in cheese-eating surrender monkeys. I hope that if and when the WMD come out of hiding and the internal cells in this country flare up and the bombs hit, that you will not cry for help. I am ashamed to call you fellow Americans. And God rest the souls of the soldiers who died for your judgmental ignorance to stomp your feet. God sustain our soldiers and our Christian voice in a country that was founded on a profound belief that God would deliver us and we would be true to Him. Our military leader was given information which trust me, you do not know all of, and he made sound judgments with the help of many individuals we put our trust in. We are not a country to wait for the bombs to fall. We will offensively take a stand where it needs to be taken so that you may live in this land. America – the Free and the Brave. We aim to stay that way – and if you don’t like it, why don’t you move to Iraq or Iran or Korea? You have the right to speak but not the right to control me or infringe on my rights. Thank God we have a President to def
Get a clue . . . Bush cares nothing for Iraq. He cares only about the oil beneath it. He cares nothing for soldiers. He just needs their arms and legs to fight his war.
Your 'leader' is "a wolf in sheep's clothing" mouthing the words of the "Prince of Peace" as he sows devastation, war and hate.
He cannot, ever, for any reason deceive, mislead or lie to us. When we say he can do that, we lose a government of the people, by the people and four the people.
How then can you account for the support Bush gives to Isreal - they have no oil and they are the enemy of those who do?
Isreal can protect itself without our help. We have our own troubles providing petroleum
for ourselves.We are in dept to
China an Saudi Arabia well into the trillions. We can no longer afford to protect so called friendly states and nations and we can no longer afford to threaten other
sovereign nations any more. What do you think happens when we no longer have the money to protect or threaten? We are forced to pull back our military anyway. I also believe that when a nations military is concentrated on their home land,they are more able to protect said nations borders. A whole lot cheaper, too.
Dear Windsweptzz,
You are brave to speak your personal beliefs, however, The Truth always makes itself known and we may disappointed in what we discover. Please feel free to view an amazing video by Adam Curtis, originally a BBC documentary, that has aired in the UK and which our media has not yet aired, although it will eventually. The website links that follow will allow you to "stream" the video. It is a three part series, so get your soda and your buttery popcorn, and sit back to enjoy a full description of the prelude to our current social dilema.
Part I: www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
Part II: www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1038.htm
Part III: www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1040.htm
Patriot
Hey windsweptzz, have another cup of kool-aid.
What is it with the rabid right? Bush has been caught in so many lies that it is hard to keep track. His mindless followers refuse to accept reality and look at the facts.
Clinton told one lie that had nothing to do with his job performance and the rabid right demanded that he be removed from office. Bush comes out with whoppers every day. He has lied to the people, he has lied to Congress (a felony), he has lied to the U.N. and the people of the world. The Repugnant robots in Congress will not investigate anything Bush does.
What will it take for the rabid right to see that Bush is shredding our constitution?
One would certainly hope to be able to trust in a president, but blind faith is not enough. In a working Democracy, 'trust but verify', and 'separation of church and state'!! Also, there is way too much evidence to deny, as you are trying so hard to do. May God open your eyes!
My God man, get a brown shirt and a swastika and you're all set.
You talk about "our Christian voice". You have no idea what Christianity means. Do you honestly think Jesus Christ would support a war that his killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians, including children?
do you think the people that are purposely targeting civilians in sucide killings are evil? this is a key question in analyzing the Iraq mission.
What a good little sheep you make, it's because of people like you that have been allowed to breed, that the country is in the shape it's in. And oh, the old love it, or leave it bit... what a nasty flash back, but then it must not be so for you, you're still living in that era. Grow up and get a mind of you're own. This goverment is not of the people , for the people anymore....
I can see you are another one of those Idiots who believe George Dubya when he daid God told him he wanted Him to be President. Between his father and Jeb-the Gov. of Flordia, they made sure he got to be the President.
Bush has to be the lyingest,cheatingest COWARD that ever lived. When judgement day comes, I had much rather be in my shoes than his, for you see because of that COWARD a lot of young soldiers have died for no cause other than to keep the USA sitting on a large oil reserve.
I am a Nam vet and it didn't take long to figure out that big ears Johnson got a lot of young people killed and mamed and I am one of them, who can no longer use the VA for medical treatment and these young kids in Iraq will find out the same when ever this Bush made war is over, they are already feeling the effects of no one caring by the conditions they are forced to live in like-Walter Reed-You ever been ib a gun fight or war, knowing that one no one gave a damn whether you lived or died except your family.
I am AN AMERICAN and I have the right or did have until Bush took over to say and think whatever I wanted to, so who the hell are you to be telling others to move. I hear that South America's looking for some assholes, why don't you check it out.
Gunny Sgt. Glendale Douthit
Retired
knew before he moved to the border.500-1.sorry about your v.a.
you cannot have the same intelligence as the president so you must believe in this war!!!!what shitty rationale.what poo head logic.
Thank God most of us who care about world peace & justice have more intelligence than the current occupant @1600 Pennsylvania Ave-or (sadly) his lap dog @#10 Downing Street! The entire world knew that B & B were lying thru their teeth, but were helpless to stop their rapacious war crimes against the people of the Middle East.Impeach.Remove.Imprison: The lot of them. Happily in the Uk it is a bit easier. One upor down vote of NO CONFIDENCE and Tony B. is back in his riding as a backbencher.Cindi speaks for me!
Sometimes you might feel as though you are out of touch, not with it anymore, perhaps you've flown the coop, gone off the deep end..........And then you read passages from a site like this and realize.......There are people in this world that need a whole lot more help than you. Thanks ever so much to all of the blithering twits who contributed to my realization.
The list of transgressions goes on and on. Politicians forcing our military to make war over profit, that goes in their cronies' pockets. The obscene way that they sat in Washington waiting (I can see them rubbing their hands with glee) for Hurricane Katrina to wipe out the gulf coast so they could hand all the reconstruction dollars to Halliburton, so that they can rebuild like they rebuilt in Iraq (how many millions lost!)...then pushing to hand over honest peoples' land and homes, albeit they were a total loss, to developers for resale to the wealthy. Notice that they continually emphasize FEMA money is available for those who live outside of the flood plane and have no flood insurance. This eliminates most residents of New Orleans.
Democracy cannot exist without a middle class. The middle class is now faced with extinction, and there is little we can do to stop it.
Where I live it is flagrant - developers are ousting people from their homes through the use of eminant domain, being allowed to do so because "poor people don't deserve to live in coastal areas" no matter how long they have owned their homes. Aaach. I am disgusted.
KING RICHARD NOT GEORGE
Dick Cheney was appointed by Bush I to select a VP.
He selected himself and hired his left over Nixon Pals in PNAC.
Bush is a Recovering Alcoholic per his own admission. See Judy Keen—Usa Today-12-29-05
Rove-Cheney-Rumsfeld let him PLAY the part of President.
They keep him out of the White House. Vacations and Speaking to only friendly crowds.
They know his alcoholic temper will explode with many questions not in his favor.
How many days over five years has he been out of the White House?
How many days have Cheney been in the White House while he was out of it.
Bush cannot concentrate.
He cannot sit and read for any extended period.
He cannot watch TV for any prolonged period.
It is early to bed or he is exhausted by 11 p.m.
He cannot ride a hoss. Well, at K-Mart perhaps.
He used wireless transmitter for a debate. Undeniable. Nasa enlargement shows truth.
Interpreter for him during Indonesia visit made this remark:
“He did not know much of Indonesia until he met with the Prime Minister then he seemed to be an expert.
I sat close to him and now I know why I kept hearing voices.
BUSH WAFFLE HOUSE
“I say what I mean and mean what I say
A common mistake is to confuse the strategic use of lie by the executive branch of the government and the effective but unspeakable rationale behind a War.
The lies are used to scare the hell out of the people, in order to mobilize them much more effectively behind a war effort.
On the other hand, the actual motives for war are often unspeakable. Either shameful, or strategically kept in secrecy.
The oil in the Middle East is not the effective motive for the Irak War; but Saddam was dangerous because he had so much oil.
Bush himself said: "America is addicted to oil" in the union address Jan. 31 2006.
Read more about War and Energy Security on http://magmareport.net
January 08, 2007 8:00 AM
Rhonda Schwartz and Maddy Sauer Report:
An Iraqi insurgent propaganda video, containing what is described as a Christmas message from a U.S. soldier taped just before he was killed, appeared on dozens of Web sites and on the al Jazeera network.
But a lot about the video does not add up, including the fact that ABC News found the supposedly dead soldier is "alive and well" and present for duty, according to a U.S. Army spokesman at Fort Campbell, Ky.
"There are a whole bunch of lies on that tape," said Lt. Col. Ed Loomis at Fort Campbell. "It is nothing but a total fabrication."
A producer at al Jazeera said it would change its description of the video after learning from ABC News that the soldier was not dead.
The tape begins in dramatic form with the title "Lee’s Life for Lies."
It is supposedly a Christmas greeting from a U.S. soldier, Specialist Lee Kimball Tucker, sent to his family in Florida before he was killed.
First there are scenes of Tucker celebrating his birthday with his buddies.
Then a cut to an attack on a U.S. Army humvee and its aftermath.
An insurgent narrator says the insurgents found a computer flash drive in the wreckage that belonged to Tucker and purports to play it.
A voice says, "Dear Mom and Dad, I’m so glad I could send you my third Christmas greetings letter."
Lt. Col. Loomis told ABC News that while the pictures appear to be authentic, it was a case of Tucker’s identity being stolen in Iraq.
The voice identified as Tucker says he and his fellow soldiers became violent and reckless searching for insurgents.
"The crimes by our soldiers during break-ins started to merge, such as burglary, harassment, raping and random manslaughter," says the voice. "Why are we even here? The people hate us."
Laura Mansfield, an Arabic language analyst at Strategic Translations, said this is a new trick in the jihadists’ propaganda campaign.
"This is part of a very shrewd campaign to reach a U.S. audience, soldiers and voters," she said. "It is in English and forgives most soldiers and Americans, calling on them to help end the war."
Also on the tape is a description, supposedly from Tucker, of how soldiers buy their way out of dangerous night patrols and gun turret duty with cash and drugs.
"The marijuana-rolled cigarettes are the rare currency capable of buying or changing anything. The drugs goes all around here," says the voice.
And it ends with a final denunciation of U.S. leaders and policy.
"What we are doing here is so disgraceful; our acts are shameful," says the voice. He then signs off, "Specialist Lee Kimball Tucker."
All very powerful from a dead soldier, except for the fact that Lee Kimball Tucker is not dead.
His family says he returned from Iraq in May and was with them over the holidays so he would not have been sending any messages home.
There will be an internal investigation at Fort Campbell to determine how the insurgents got a hold of the home video of the soldiers, and Fort Campbell officials are urging all soldiers to take further precautions against identity theft.
Tucker’s mother Pam of Fort Worth, Texas, told ABC News that Tucker is not anti-war and that he could be returning to Iraq later this year.
Where is exactly is the proof you speak of?
By the way, have you forgotten all that the Democrats said about Iraq half a decade before the war started? It sounds almost verbatim to what Bush said. Should we disregard this? I think not.
How about coming up with real proof if you are trying to sway someone's opinion? Bush stands firm for moral principles.
You might as well admit that you don't care about the people of Iraq. If you did, where were you when Saddam was killing and torturing them by the tens of thousands? This just gives you more of a valid reason to hate Bush (in your own closed mind).
Now we all know that you don't support victory for America to win the war. Guess who else holds this position? Al-Qaeda. So thanks for sharing your hatred for America, by supporting the enemy.
You claim that Bush lied, without actually presenting a shred of "real" evidence. You are the ones who are the true liars. You are not fooling anyone with half a brain, and the ability to question the obvious. You are pushing your Marxist agenda forward --period! You know I'm right.
This is just ridiculous.
If you seek the real truth, visit my blog:
http://www.brentroos.com
something said that one knows to be false at the time it is said. For example, " I did not have sex with that woman". Or, " I did not inhale".
Someone please provide an example of something Bush has said that he knew was false at the time it was said.
Long after the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida was debunked, Bush continued to insist it existed. On June 17, 2004, in response to the 9/11 Commission report, Bush said "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda."
The JR's only mention of Al Qaeda is "members of Al Qaeda are in Iraq" so Bush doesn't have to fulfill a justification he didn't officially claim. Saddam was a prolific state sponsor of terrorism by muslim extremists whose attacks on Israelis were as much or more to further the cause of Islam than for any human rights violations against the Palestinians. Saddam publicly applauded OBL after the African embassy bombings and the 9/11 attacks. We know OBL sought alliances with Saddam.
That is enough for me. Since America is a democracy you are free to ignore these facts and disagree, promoting a strategy of inaction and appeasement despite 9/11 showing us the dangers of such a course. Fortunately for national security, your view is that of the marginalized.
If Iraq was not trying to get nuclear weapons,where did North Korea get the ability to make one. North Korea was Saddam's biggest partner, of course after the son of the head of the u.n. who made 20 billon dollars. Russia, Germany, and France also was going around the sanctions. This whole time the U.S. and Britan was enforcing it. Now the biggest influence, Iran can build one. Mr. Wilson where did they get the uranium? It seems if u are an expert u would know. People 2=2=4 not 5.Sanctions are proven to work if enforced right, so this is a problem the world must take care of. Lets get this four to take the responsablity they should!
What crap! Are you people for real? Are you privy to the inside intelligence the President is privy to? You sound to me like you're committing treason. Really you're just another bunch of people who can't see the forest for the trees because you don't understand what's been going on, you evidentally don't know history, and you hate Bush. Talk about malicious agendas!
We had lots of good reasons to take Sadam out of power in Iraq. Sadam was a murderer of his own people and a member of the radical Islamic Iraqi sect, the Sunnis. This tribe terrorized its fellow citizens into subjection to a form of radical Islamic obeasance the rest of the Iraq population has not wanted to ascribe to. (It would be like the KKK having a member of their organization here in the White House and on he police force.) Think of how the Islamic radicals have treated woman and how many Kurds Sadam had offed over he years... Or did you do your homework? How could we know whether Sadam had WMD's if we did not go into that country to find out for sure if the reports we'd been hearing were true? Sadam was a violent, sociopathic, facist, Sunni leader who needed to be taken out of power so that the less orthodox, less harmfull, Iraqi citizens could live in a more normal, "westernised" way without fear of aggression. Bush has worked this whole time towards to the goal of having a more reasonable and rational government evolve in Iraq after Sadam was removed. We would like to do business with Iraq just as we do with Saudi Arabia. Iraq can be a free country. But we have to remove those terrorist-minded individuals who will not let that happen, first.
This war is really a civil war wherein we are helping the less orthodox, more peaceful citizens of Iraq gain control of their own country so they can form a democracy. The intensity and longevity of this current struggle for power was not fully anticipated since the millitant, jihad-minded, radical, Islamic, Sunni tribe represented lass than 15% of the Iraq population at the time this all begin to unfold. The radical, jihadist, Sunni tribe, of which Sadam had been a member, wants to comtinue to stay in power. They have been willing to fight in every possible under-handed way to do so, including acting as human-bombs and deliberately entrenching their forces within the community, thus holding their fellow citizens as hostage for their security sake making it harder to take them out without jeopardizing the innocent. The Shites, and everyone else whom they have been victomizing in their conuntry for years, the more peaceful, westernized groups/tribes, have been the ones the Sunnis have wanted to keep out of power. The US and NATO have wanted this peacefull majority to win.
The bottom line is that we have been faced with having to try to help the peacefull Iraqis to weed out these radical Sunni fighters within the nation. All this time the Sunnis have been recruting insurgents from neighboring Iran, a state comprised of a large majority of Islamic radicals to fill in for the Sunnis we take out. We are gradually running out of Sunnis, and insurgents, to get rid of though. The surge has been working and the objective of freeing this society of these terrorists so that the regular people can govern peacefully is working. We are succeeding!
But you guys, your're siding with the enemy! That's treason!
Five months later, the truthfulness of one claim in George W. Bush's State of the Union address has become the focus of growing media scrutiny. The attention media are paying to this single assertion should be part of a larger journalistic inquiry into other misstatements and exaggerations that have been made by the Bush administration about Iraq.
In the January 28 speech, Bush claimed that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." That assertion was similar to claims made previously by administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell (CBS Evening News, 12/19/02), that Iraq had sought to import yellowcake uranium from Niger, a strong indication that Saddam Hussein's regime was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
In fact, the Niger story, as documented by journalist Seymour Hersh (New Yorker, 3/31/03) and others, was based on crudely forged documents. In addition, the administration's own investigation in March 2002 concluded that the story was bogus. As one former State Department official put it, "This wasn't highly contested. There weren't strong advocates on the other side. It was done, shot down" (Time, 7/21/03).
Bush's use of the Niger forgeries has received considerable media attention in recent days. Much of this reporting has been valuable, and some outlets have broadened the inquiry beyond one passage in a speech. The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, for example, suggests (7/16/03) that the uranium claim remained in the State of the Union address because "almost all the other evidence had either been undercut or disproved by U.N. inspectors in Iraq."
Much media coverage, however, has focused narrowly on the Niger incident, putting the press is in danger of ignoring the most important question the story raises: Does the uranium claim indicate a larger pattern of deceptive claims made about Iraq? At minimum, the following assertions made by the Bush administration also deserve media scrutiny:
Aluminum tubes: In the State of the Union address and elsewhere, the White House has claimed that Iraq was seeking to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in processing uranium, tubes Bush said would be "suitable for nuclear weapons production." But a report in the Washington Post (9/19/02) months before Bush's address noted that leading scientists and former weapons inspectors seriously questioned the administration's explanation--pointing out that the tubes, which would be difficult to use for uranium production, were more plausibly intended for artillery rockets. The Post also noted charges that the "Bush administration is trying to quiet dissent among its own analysts over how to interpret the evidence." Commendably, some reporters, like NBC's Andrea Mitchell (7/14/03), have questioned the aluminum tubes claim in recent reporting about Bush's State of the Union address.
Iraq/Al Qaeda links: When Bush announced the end of hostilities in Iraq in a May 1 speech aboard the USS Lincoln, he said of the defeated Iraqi regime: "We have removed an ally of Al Qaeda." While a Saddam Hussein/Osama bin Laden connection was one of the administration's early justifications for going to war, it has produced no evidence to demonstrate this link exists.
There is evidence, however, that the administration was deeply invested in proving such a tie, as former Gen. Wesley Clark attested recently on Meet the Press (FAIR Media Advisory, 6/20/03). Yet media accounts of Bush's USS Lincoln speech hardly raised an eyebrow over this attempt to keep the Iraq/Al Qaeda link alive.
The trailers: Bush presented the discovery of two trailers in Iraq as proof that Iraq possessed banned weapons: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories," he told Polish TV (Associated Press, 5/31/03). "They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."
But serious questions had been raised within the administration about whether these trailers had anything to do with biological weapons--doubts that soon emerged in a New York Times article (6/7/03). No evidence has been put forward confirming that the trailers were designed for anything other than the production of hydrogen for artillery balloons, as captured Iraqis had said (London Observer, 6/8/03).
Weapons inspections: More recently, Bush has flagrantly misrepresentedthe history of the prewar conflict with Iraq over weapons inspections, telling reporters on July 14, "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." In fact, after a Security Council resolution was passed demanding that Iraq allow inspectors in, they were given complete access to the country. The Washington Post (7/15/03), describing Bush's remarkable statement, could only say that his assertion "appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring." Joe Conason (Salon.com, 7/15/03) took note of "the press corps' failure to report his stunning gaffe. The sentence quoted above doesn't appear in today's New York Times report, for example."
Powell's U.N. address: Some of the current reporting over the Niger uranium forgery notes that Colin Powell was less confident about the story, as evinced by the fact that he did not include the claim in his February 5 address to the United Nations. But Powell's speech had problems of its own. As pointed out by Gilbert Cranberg (Washington Post, 6/29/03), Powell embellished an intercepted conversation about weapons inspections between Iraqi officials to make it sound more incriminating, changing an order to "inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned areas" to a command to "clean out" those areas. He also added the phrase "make sure there is nothing there," a phrase that appears nowhere in the State Department's official translation. Further, Powell relied heavily on the disclosure of Iraq's pre-war unconventional weapons programs by defector Hussein Kamel, without noting that Kamel had also said that all those weapons had been destroyed (FAIR Media Advisory, 2/27/03).
Other pre-war deceptions: Even when administration deceptions have been exposed by prominent mainstream outlets, the media in general tend not to recall them or draw connections. In October 2002, in a notable front-page article titled "For Bush, Facts Are Malleable" (10/22/02), Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank noted two dubious Bush claims about Iraq: his citing of a United Nations International Atomic Energy report alleging that Iraq was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon; and that Iraq maintained a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used, in Bush's words, "for missions targeting the United States."
While these assertions "were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought," Milbank concluded they "were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States" and "there was no such report by the IAEA." But recent media discussions of Bush's credibility--including in the Washington Post--have rarely mentioned these examples.
______________________
Submited by : Bajar Libros