September 03, 2003
Putting Faith in False Prophets
In the LA Times Robert Scheer has an article on the ‘evidence’ that the White House used to formulate their case for the war on Iraq, which Bush presented in his State of the Union Address. It now appears that the Iraqi weapon claims presented by Bush were based on the claims of Iraqi émigrés who lied to the US in order to start a war that suited their own needs. Now, after too many Americans have died in Iraq U.S. intelligence officials say the administration was lied to by Iraqi émigrés.
What about the intelligence process? Wouldn’t the baseless lies of the Iraqi émigrés have been found out by the likes of the CIA or the NSA? According to Scheer:
“Bush ignored all the cautions of career diplomats and intelligence experts in every branch of the U.S. government over the unsubstantiated word of Iraqi renegades.”
Scheer continues by raising concerns about our President:
“Clearly, the administration, from the president on down, did not want expert advice and intelligence that would have undermined its excuse for invading Iraq. This was a shell game from beginning to end in which Americans’ legitimate fear of terrorism after Sept. 11 was almost immediately and cynically exploited by the neoconservative gang that runs U.S. foreign policy. “
Quite rightly, Scheer follows these concerns by chastising Americans for not holding the Presidents feet to the fire for lying to us.
"too many Americans betray the proud tradition of an independent citizenry by buying into the "aw shucks" irresponsibility of a president who daily does a grave injustice to the awesome obligations of the office that he has sworn — in the name of God, no less — to uphold."
The outrage is there Scheer, but it is not getting the front page headlines that the lies of our former president received. David Lindorff takes a look at the double standard in his article Clinton, Bush and Impeachment. If the impeachment of Clinton was really just about lying, and not about sex, then why haven't the members of Congress started impeachment hearings on the State of the Union lies? Bush's lies are obviously more serious than lying about the personal behavior between two consenting adults. Bush's lies have lead to over 300 American casualties in Iraq (that we know about) while Clinton's lie lead to a stained dress.
Is this the same Robert Scheer as NPR? Well I thought there was no bias on NPR, guess i was wrong about that. Scheer is just a propagandist for the left anyway. A political hack is not a journalist….wait maybe I am wrong about that too.
Posted by: Pete at September 3, 2003 11:42 AMI’m not going to disagree that NPR has a bit of a bias - but for a biased media outlet, they really give pretty fair coverage to all opinions- much more than you’d expect from a “biased” organization. Most lefties go so far as to argue that they are not biased at all. While I wouldn’t go that far, I’d at least say the “fair and balanced” slogan would be much more appropriate at NPR than at most other media outlets..
This said - your argument sucks. This was a link to an LA Times article, not an NPR story. LA Times has nothing to do with NPR. How do you know NPR would let Scheer run that same article over the airwaves? Maybe they did air the story, but we don’t know, and thats not what you’re basing your argument on.
Posted by: nobody at September 3, 2003 01:03 PMPete, et. al—
As far as I know Robert Scheer does not work for NPR, but you are free to check out the current listing of on-air personalities currently working for NPR here. I listen to NPR daily and I do not find the network bias to one side or the other; Pete do you have verifiable evidence to the contrary? I could have sworn I just listen to a rather lengthy interview of Tom Ridge this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition.
As far as Lefty’s article is concerned, he is right on. I have always maintained that Congress has a more then good case for impeachment of the Accidental President.
I don’t know what it is about Republican’s that they feel they have to stand by their man no matter what, even in the face of evidence that shows the Bush Administration outright lied to the American peopled to further the aims of the neo-conservative wing of his dysfunctional Party. Wrong is wrong, is wrong. We were lied to and I frankly do not appreciate it, nor will I long stand for it; Bush has got to go.
The LA Times has declared a ‘war on liberal bias’ just to let you know. Scheer is also a comentator on NPR, and has written for The Nation.
However, arguing if Scheer is biased is a waste of time. The article is an opinion, so bias is implied. That doesn’t mean that the facts in the article are any less valid. Bush did ignore the “cautions of career diplomats and intelligence experts in every branch of the U.S. government” in favor of these Iraqi émigrés who were telling him what he wanted to hear. That is a fact, or at least that is what the White House is now telling America about the lies it told before the war in Iraq.
The result of this breach of intelligence protocalls has lead our Nation into a war that is costing one billion dollars a week and the lives of our sons and daughters in America’s armed forces.
Where do you stand on that issue?
“The result of this breach of intelligence protocalls has lead our Nation into a war that is costing one billion dollars a week and the lives of our sons and daughters in America’s armed forces.”
“Where do you stand on that issue?”
I am going to the Howard Dean Meetup tonight and then watching the Democrat’s presidential debate on Cspan.org
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at September 3, 2003 03:03 PMI was off. the debate is tomorrow night Sept 4th 6 PM in New Mexico (8 PM Eastern) and will air on PBS and CSPAN but not Fox News, MSNBC or CNN.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at September 3, 2003 03:34 PM“Bush ignored all the cautions of career diplomats and intelligence experts in every branch of the U.S. government over the unsubstantiated word of Iraqi renegades.”
Apparently Robert Scheer has been hanging out with the insiders at the White House.
“If the impeachment of Clinton was really just about lying, and not about sex, then why haven’t the members of Congress started impeachment hearings on the State of the Union lies?”
Because Democrats can’t prove those “allegations”
and if they were to have a massive inquiry over the matter, they would find the same thing that the British Parlaiment found….nothing. Don’t you think that Democrats would LOVE to nail Bush on this? If the conspiracy theory is true, why isn’t Bush being impeached RIGHT NOW?
I will tell you why they aren’t investigating it. If they do they will end up proving Bush’s point for him and making themselves look silly.
“Apparently Robert Scheer has been hanging out with the insiders at the White House.”
You don’t need to hang out at the White House to be able to read (apparently). Heck, even reading the paper will give you more than enough information to back up Scheer’s statements. This article from June 11th in Knight Ridder Newspapers provides evidence that verifies Scheer’s claim that you doubt.
Let’s take a look:
“A senior CIA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the intelligence agency informed the White House on March 9, 2002 - 10 months before Bush’s nationally televised speech - that an agency source who had traveled to Niger couldn’t confirm European intelligence reports that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from the West African country.”
and:
“Three senior administration officials said Vice President Dick Cheney and some officials on the National Security Council staff and at the Pentagon ignored the CIA’s reservations and argued that the president and others should include the allegation in their case against Saddam.”
and:
“In the months before Bush’s State of the Union speech, the senior CIA official said, agency officials also told the State Department, National Security Council staffers and members of Congress that they doubted that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium from Niger.”
and:
“One possibility, one senior official suggested Thursday, is that some officials at the Pentagon and in the vice president’s office were getting their own intelligence from Iraqi exiles who the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency warned couldn’t be trusted.”
Pete, without playing the ‘partisan politics’ card, please cite an article that shows that Bush:
1. Did not ignore intelligence officials about the validity of the WMD claims that he made in his State of the Union.
2. Did not deceive the American people in making his case for war with Iraq.
3. Is not being treated with different standards than President Clinton, specifically dealing with the above referenced lies.
Feel free to cite articles from conservatives, liberals or other. I will not begrudge your points by questioning the bias of any reporter you choose to cite.
Gauntlet down…
Posted by: Lefty at September 3, 2003 06:00 PMI believe the burden of proof is on the Democrats here to prove wrongdoing. If there was wrongdoing then go right ahead and impeach the man. I do not need to do google searches all day to point out articles from right-leaning news sources that the claims are false. Linking to articles is nothing but an exercise in web-debate anyway and ALL articles on these subjects are biased anyway. What I can do is point out that Scheer is a hack.
Go to spinsanity.org and look him up.
Throw down the gauntlet all you want. I will merely pick it up and hand it back to you. It is, in this instance, your property.
History will prove whether or not the administration acted in our’s and the world’s best interests. At this point, a judgement would be premature. That said, let me ask those who are villyfying Pres Bush this question…what if all that he claimed turns out to be true? What if he and his experts neglected the intelligence that not only the US, but the rest of the world and the US had gathered over the last 7 years. Every country prior to the war believed that Iraq had some form of WMD, notably Anthrax and nerve gas, and the disagreement was over how to deal with that, not whether or not Iraq possessed WMD. History may prove otherwise, but before the first shots were fired, the existence of WMD was not the argument. The argument was how to best contain a hostile regime that the ENTIRE world assumed had WMD.
What if Bush did not act, and Hussein handed over Anthrax (remember the scare in DC post 9-11) to terrorists? In my opinion the argument for going to war was twofold: eliminate a hostile regime that the entire world thought had WMD and a regime that had an interest in harming the USA any way possible, including transferring WMD to terrorists. The second, albeit less mentioned, reason for the war was to try and turn around an absolute hopeless portion of the world. The biggest threat to the USA is Islamic extremists coming from mainly the Middle East. This did not occur b/c of Bush’s policy, but because there is absolutely no hope for young people in the Middle East who are not tied to the gov’t nor to oil. By establishing a peaceful, market oriented democracy right in the middle of the cesspool that is the Middle East, a long term model for success would be right next door to some of the fertile grounds of extremism (Saudi Arabia and Syria come to mind.) Colin Powell said many months ago jobs, not jihad. He is absolutely right.
Is it painful to hear the daily reports on US casualties, absolutely. Did Bush base his justification for going to war on those 16 words in his State of the Union? No, he did not. Was he deliberately deceiving the country? No, he was not. Britain still stands by those claims, and quite a lot has been written by the man the CIA sent to Niger to examine the claim. Not even the most favorable reviews of the man would say he made an exhaustive study of the claims.
I still think Bush made the right call, but history will decide this one in the years ahead. Keep in mind, the war has only been over for several months, restoration and discovery take much longer.
Final parting shot…get over the 2000 election! My God, you people need to move on. The electoral system came through. Gore won the popular vote, but that is why the framers invented the electoral system…to even out the various populations to avoid one very large state calling the election shots. Move on!
Posted by: Rob at September 5, 2003 12:56 AMImpeachment… now that would be funny. Can someone find me a Congressman anywhere who has suggested that anything the President has done is an impeachable offense. The leftists just can’t get over the impeachment of Clinton. Now every time they see something they don’t like they’ll say, “Bush should be impeached!”
Hey guys, stick with, “Bush lied, people died.” That will get you the kind of Republican presidential victory we saw in 1984 and 1988.
Posted by: CJ at September 5, 2003 08:35 PMRevisiting a tired thread for my own amusement..
In Response to Rob:
“let me ask those who are villyfying Pres Bush this question…what if all that he claimed turns out to be true?”
Are you suggesting that we should take a “guilty until proven innocent” approach to justice - is this strictly for foreign policy and “terror” or will it seep into our domestic approach as well. When this happens, we are no better than Saddam’s thug-rule justice.
”..but before the first shots were fired, the existence of WMD was not the argument”
Then why did they spend so much time telling us all about the WMD’s? They were a very essential argument, not the only argument, but definitely one of the reasons for invading. Of course, now they’re attempting to alter the past, because after interrogating all those scientists and scouring the Iraqi countryside, they have come up with next to nothing. Now they are claiming that the threat was actually the “employment of scientists with the ability to produce WMD’s” - now thats a hell of a lot different that WMD’s that can be launched at the US on 45 minutes notice. No wonder they are pretending this was not an argument in making the case for war.
What if Bush did not act, and Hussein handed over Anthrax (remember the scare in DC post 9-11) to terrorists?
I think it would be a more plausible scenario the other way around- terrorists providing chemicals to Hussein. We haven’t found sizeable amounts of Anthrax in Iraq in recent years, before or after the war. We did have terrorists producing it and killing americans with it right in our own back yard, and we never caught them either because we were too busy worrying about Iraq..
“The biggest threat to the USA is Islamic extremists coming from mainly the Middle East”
I agree with you here. The funny thing is that before invading, there were very few terrorists in Iraq. There was a thug-dictator who was thumbing his nose at the UN/US, but was staying out of trouble for the most part, and was content with striking fear only on those in a 500 mile radius, and only for the sake of preserving his micro-empire. Now that we have thrown away hundreds of billions, and sacrificed Iraqi, American, and Allied lives- we have succeeded in creating a hostile non-governed region that is a beacon for terrorists from surrounding regions who want a piece of the action, and want to take american lives.
As romantic as it seems to have a heroic president who stands up for good in the face of evil, I would much prefer someone with half a brain who can actually tell the difference between an a$$hole trying to pick a fight you and one that is content just being belligerent, occasionally insulting you and beating on his friends. In the latter case, you should let the a$$hole’s friends worry about usurping his control rather than waste your time and energy that could be better spent on your own problems.
Posted by: nobody at September 9, 2003 09:21 AMIn response to Nobdy’s comments…To assume that we would expand guilty until proven innocent (And I am stretching to call Hussein innocent) to domestic policy is flawed. You use the same argument that Dershowitz and others used to scare people on the topic of military tribunals. Do you honestly believe that the government is going to come after its citizens?
We could go around and around on the topic of Iraq, but the question that I have for the dems, is what would you have done diffently, and what would you now do differently? It is the easiest thing in the world to criticize, but another thing to offer a constuctive solution. The democratic pres candidates get caught up in a who can lambast Bush best contest, but from what I have seen, no one is stepping forward with a competing vision. 9-11 changed foreign policy. Terrorists are almost invisible, so it is almost impossible to watch threats moving toward us. Unlike the previous 100 years when we could watch countries actions clearly. The UN will not help as most countries are not the targets of terror attacks, and France and Germany certainly feel immune. To pull the old ostrich defense by sticking our head in the sand and hoping that nothing happens is not a good way to conduct policy. What did we actually do to deserve 9-11? Invading Iraq did not increase the likelihood of attacks on the USA, and that is my fundamental point…by acting against Iraq in the Middle East, we are attempting to send a message to states that toleate terrorist (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria,) and providing a potential model for success. In my opinion that certainly beats any alternative that I have heard from anyone of the left. Then again, I have not heard anything but criticism from the left, and nothing constructive.
Posted by: Rob at September 10, 2003 01:30 PMRob, thanks for your thoughtful reply. While I see where you are coming from and you have made a valid point, I’ll try to expand on my take on things..
“…by acting against Iraq in the Middle East, we are attempting to send a message to states that toleate terrorist (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria,) and providing a potential model for success”
If by this you mean pointing out to terroists that we are insane enough to throw away hundreds of billions of dollars to chase them around the world and kill them before most of them even commit any crimes, then yes we are successful. I don’t think we need to be that extreme.
There are plenty of other models to follow. For one thing, regardless of how psychotic terrorists may be, most of them hate America for a very real reason. The current administration is unwilling to consider that their reasoning may have even an ounce of relevancy. As far as the administration is concerned - We are the only nation that matters on the global scene. We are only willing to cooperate in international agreements to the extent that they further our economic interest. We justify this stance by pointing out the other cut-throat nations - “If we don’t take the oil, the Russians will”. This is no excuse for empirical conquest. The other nations are at fault too, but we can use avenues such as the United Nations to hold those other nations up to the same standards that we should be keeping. Instead we choose to ignore any UN resolutions that are not in our economic interest. This fundamental approach to world politics does not go unnoticed and is undoubtedly one of the reasons that terrorists are concerned about the US.
I think that we should really push for a proactive UN taskforce to work on terrorist groups. We should also analyze the concerns of groups/nations who have problems with our policies and at least address these issues in the to the international community. We also need to seriously step up our domestic security. This does not mean handing our civil liberties to big brother as John Ashcroft would have you believe. This means a serious reform/streamlining effort within the existing system. Our security agencies are seriously lacking in performace, we need to boost that performance rather than give them free reign to screw up even more of the social/ domestic landscape. This could all be done on a sliver of the Iraqi war budget. And speaking of the Iraqi war, I, and many others, have been opposed to it from the get-go unlike our spineless democratic congressmen. The war was successful to an extent, but when you weigh the costs on the economy and on human lives against the current state of Iraq and the new landscape of international terror - We are not really that much safer than we were a year ago and we’re a few hundred billion dollars in the hole. I never saw Saddam’s regime as a direct threat to the US, and as we all now know- the UN resolutions WERE fairly successful at keeping him out of serious trouble. I was for some action in Afghanistan, but after seeing the results of “War on Terror” in action, it was apparent that we were going at it the wrong way and treating it as a traditional war scenario. We had no idea if we won or lost after the smoke cleared, but were left with the bill for the military occupation and reconstruction. Sure some of the Taliban were killed, but Osama was still missing, others escaped, and other terrorist groups are still in the area. Rather than re-evaluating this flawed approach to dealing with terror in terms of Iraq, we simply stepped it a level and wasted much more money. There will continue to be terror threats around the world as there always have been, but if we keep throwing money away like this there will be no America left worth protecting anyways.
This whole approach to the terror problem kinda reminds me of the current state of US Medicine and the american attitude toward health. Rather than take a holistic approach to improving the quality of life and taking preventative care from medical problems, we prefer to take the short-sighted and lazy approach of over-indulgence until prescription drugs are required to create a false and temporary state of wellness. This suits the pharmacutical, alcohol, and tobacco industries just fine, so they’re not really inclined to tell people otherwise. Similalry US Foreign Policy sort of exploits anyone and everyone around the globe until people get pissed off enough to point missiles our direction, at which point our military and re-construction corporations are happy to bank the profits from the neccessary military resolution to said problem.. very sickening from an ethical standpoint, but this is capitalism in action.. ah well..
Posted by: nobody at September 10, 2003 04:31 PM
