I tire of seeing people repeat that W lied to attack Iraq.

I get so tired of "opinion" and "popular bs" masquerading as knowledge.

If you want to stop sounding like just one more moron repeating what someone else told you to hear, there are ways to inform yourself.

I suggest you watch the whole thing (because it is interesting and not technical), but if you only have a minute or two watch a few minutes of this video, taken from that vast right-wing conspiratorial stronghold, a lecture hall at The University of California at Berkeley.

This is delivered by a guy who is hyper-concerned about man-made global warming. If you are going to accuse him of a bias, please tell me what his bias is.

The quick information you need is at 41:50.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BHdsjo-NR4


This is not actually the best one of these compilations I have seen, it omits a lot, but it is quick and useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwqh4wQPoQk

Another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCVZlLBchVE




It seems to me that I remember before the second gulf war seeing video of truck after truck after truck full of "something" unidentified streaming into Syria from Iraq. I may be making this up, but when the war started I think the forces were very quickly concerned about sealing the border with Syria.

"W" is hardly my favorite President. He did so much that I cannot excuse that I am ashamed of him. He was wrong about whether WMD were IN IRAQ at that moment in time. He didn't "lie" about it unless you want to say everyone was lying about it.


I'm not saying I know what is going-on in Syria now. I'm absolutely certain I don't. But I'm not going to let someone else tell me what I should think about the facts and draw my conclusions for me. Too many years of too much smoke being blown up my _____.

I **remember** a press conference with Madeline Albright and John Kerry trying to push President Clinton into a war with Iraq.

I don't want to hear about Bush's lies anymore. At least not among a group of enlightened people here. If you aren't enlightened, you didn't click the links.

I agree, the shrub did not lie about WMDs what he is guilty of is going to war with hastily vetted evidence some of which was a lie.

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I agree, the shrub did not lie about WMDs what he is guilty of is going to war with hastily vetted evidence some of which was a lie.

Don't you mean, "some of which was wrong."

There's a difference.

Don't you mean, "some of which was wrong."

Taint 'bout Da Shrub Anymore. Tis about The Hustler.

And Hustlin'NotMyREDLineIt'sYourREDLineHussein is Mucho Worseso than Shrubster and Dicky.

His Own Base Knows Not Whose Side He is on. What is Next Coming from His Hustlin' Lips. Where His next Flip Flop is Gunna Flop. It is All About Him, but No One Knows who This PhonyPOtus Is. Not Even HimSelf.

Man 'O Live, this PitifulPeacePrizer Gots Some Serious Issues. MAJOR.

And The Suffering Is Universal.

TOTAL FAIL

fO shO

'it'

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

The Iraqi intelligence service did a masterful job. Everyone likes to forget that they were proclaiming they had WMD's. Back that up with a nice feint of having conferences out at some remote building with the "right" people forced to attend, and some heavy truck traffic and guess what, you have a WMD program.

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I agree, the shrub did not lie about WMDs what he is guilty of is going to war with hastily vetted evidence some of which was a lie.

Don't you mean, "some of which was wrong."

There's a difference.

No, I mean lies by Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war

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In the interests of civility, let's not call what Bush told us "lies".
Instead of "lies", let's call them "made up facts".

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think that the reports of Saddam having WMD came from a source, that at best could be described as, double check everything he says. But Dubya and a persuaded Blair were prepared to grasp anything that made a case for action.

Also in the pre-war government report by the British government there was a map that showed the Iraqis had rockets that could reach as far as Cyprus with WMD warheads, this was not true and they knew it, and when questioned, they sort of agreed, but did not put out a retraction. This was probably one of the "facts" that meant the great unwashed were prepared to back action, when you consider Cyprus is a popular holiday destination for the Brits and quite a few would have or had service personnel serving in the 3 Sovereign base areas.

a map that showed the Iraqis had rockets that could reach as far as Cyprus with WMD warheads, this was not true and they knew it, and when questioned, they sort of agreed, but did not put out a retraction.

Got any more info on that?

Plenty available if one looks.....

Whitehall & the Iraq War

"The government had committed several blunders here. The schoolboy-style plagiarism cast a veil of dishonesty over all the material issued in ‘dossier’ form."

The Iraq Inquiry

Iraq 10 years on

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It never fails to amaze me how the American press is able to reduce everything to the level of petty party politics. We see them still apologizing for Bush's "honest mistakes", at the same time they are condemning Obama's attempts to legally go to war as "el Qaeda’s Air Force". I wonder what the press coverage would be like if they had a Republican president, or even a white Democrat president?

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Plenty available if one looks.....

Good links, thanks.

There was a lot more but trying to find a particular needle is daunting :(

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Interesting ...

relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND.

So it was the BND that got taken and passed it on. No more blaming shrub.

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Interesting ...

relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND.

So it was the BND that got taken and passed it on. No more blaming shrub.

They passed it on to people that should have known better, or at least should have checked twice before destroying a nation. Still lots of blame to go around.

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They passed it on to people that should have known better, or at least should have checked twice before destroying a nation.

Checked it how? Just exactly what was passed on? Just a report of conclusions or the interview and whatever fact checking was done to vet it?

When you get information from an ally and they say they agree with its conclusion and nothing in it goes against what your own services have collected ...

In any case that checking isn't shrub's job. Some analyst got snookered and no one up the chain of command had any information to contradict it, in fact it was what they expected because that was what the target was saying publicly he was doing!

Too bad Iraqi intelligence misread the USA assuming we would never go to war if they boasted they were working on WMD. Likely wouldn't have if they hadn't done a plot on the Daddy of the Pres.

Now who is lying about WMD in Syria?

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1. It never fails to amaze me how the American press is able to reduce everything to the level of petty party politics.

1. The "American press"?! THE AMERICAN PRESS!? OMG! WHERE DO I BEGIN!? Let me just say, which came first? The chicken or the egg?

Much to your shock, America does have a press. http://www.voanews.com/

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1. The "American press"?!

The Chicago Tribune, today

THE AMERICAN PRESS!?

The LA times, 30 August 2013

Just WHAT NEWS AGENCY is doing this? Fox News? Rush Limbaugh? MSNBC?

Rush is carried on most Canadian cable networks,and I've seen him on TV in Europe and Asia on my travels over the last few years. As far as the rest of us know, he represents an Average American.

3. YOU KNOW WHAT THE PRESS COVERAGE WOULD BE IF ROMNEY WAS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Based on what I've seen of Republican presidents in the last few decades, he would be bombing the hell out of everybody, and a good chunk of the US press would be falling over each other in the rush to kiss his butt.

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When you get information from an ally and they say they agree with its conclusion and nothing in it goes against what your own services have collected ...

I hope you are not making major policy decisions on a single data point.

In any case that checking isn't shrub's job.

You used to have a president who had a sign on his desk that said "the buck stops here".

Now who is lying about WMD in Syria?

That is the key question. how will we (all of us) answer it?

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