People are starting to wake up from the knee-jerk reaction of 9-11.
Things like truth, conscience and so on are starting to exert themselves after such a long holiday.
Wait, can I change my answer, he must be a terrorist… or a communists… maybe just a socialist, but he’s definitely anti-American, the bastard.
Hmm, I wonder when Colin Powell’s tell all book will be coming out?
There are going to be a ton of things that come out, after the fact, that we’ve argued about in here…
And, what do you know, sometimes the people defending Bush all the time will have been wrong.
Vroom’s drunk, LOL!
I haven’t read his book so I don’t know how “deep” this “tell-all” goes, but the little I’ve read he basically said that Bush’s goal was to establish a democracy in Iraq in order to refactor the Middle East, and pushed the WMD angle because he didn’t believe that the public would support such an ambitious goal by itself.
Haven’t those of us with at least half a brain known that for a long time now?
And doesn’t that pretty much discredit all of the conspiracy theories (“Bush went in to steal oil!”, “It’s all a conspiracy to make Haliburton rich!”, “Bush doesn’t care about Democracy!”)?
[quote]vroom wrote:
People are starting to wake up from the knee-jerk reaction of 9-11.
Things like truth, conscience and so on are starting to exert themselves after such a long holiday.[/quote]
Quite the contrary. We’ve not done nearly enough.
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
I haven’t read his book so I don’t know how “deep” this “tell-all” goes, [/quote]
Well, it’s not out yet.
Bush does not care about democracy, unless the winner is pro-Washington. But then again, neither did anyone who occupied the White House before him. History is full of examples.
I don’t know about Haliburton, but there is little doubt that the MIC has a huge hand in shaping America’s foreign policy. See Eisenhower et al.
As for oil, it is extremely naive to believe that the country’s huge reserves didn’t come up when making the decision. Anyone who’s read PNAC’s mission statement and took a peek at the names associated with it can attest to that.
It’s hardly a conspiracy theory. It’s out in the open really.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Moriarty wrote:
I haven’t read his book so I don’t know how “deep” this “tell-all” goes,
Well, it’s not out yet.
And doesn’t that pretty much discredit all of the conspiracy theories (“Bush went in to steal oil!”, “It’s all a conspiracy to make Haliburton rich!”, “Bush doesn’t care about Democracy!”)?
Bush does not care about democracy, unless the winner is pro-Washington. But then again, neither did anyone who occupied the White House before him. History is full of examples.
I don’t know about Haliburton, but there is little doubt that the MIC has a huge hand in shaping America’s foreign policy. See Eisenhower et al.
As for oil, it is extremely naive to believe that the country’s huge reserves didn’t come up when making the decision. Anyone who’s read PNAC’s mission statement and took a peek at the names associated with it can attest to that.
It’s hardly a conspiracy theory. It’s out in the open really.[/quote]
So then you dismiss McClellan’s “revelations” then? Because I inferred the you believed his accusations but I definitely could have been mistaken.
This excerpt of the post below strikes me as about right:
[i]Put aside the fact that McClellan has ample personal reasons for writing a harsh book about the Bush White Hosue (two of those reasons are named Rove and Libby). Writing a harsh tell-all memoir of the Bush years is just good business sense at this point. You only need to look back at the anemic sales of Ari Fleischer’s rosy, no-tell memoir of his White House years to realize that–and Fleischer’s low-seller came out at a time when Bush’s approval rating was higher than 28 percent.
So kudos to McClellan. His book displays a calculating mind that was never much in evidence in the White House press room.[/i]
[quote]entheogens wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
He is trying to cash in, just like all the Clinton staffers did to him with all their tell all books.
A stand up guy would have said something at the time, not years later to make money.
I agree with this. What he is saying is probably true. However, it appears that he is arguing that he was just innocently reporting what was told to him (I think that is bullshit). If he had any ethics (and/or balls) he would have denounced the activity as it happened and/or resigned a long time before he did.
He’s not a hero, he’s an opportunist. Easy money.
[/quote]
I am not sure what he book really says but the job of the press secretary is to present the one side of the story that supports the presidents position. In other words his job is to spin.
If he is claiming he was unaware of other facts at the time he is a liar (which is almost his job description). Hard to take any of it seriously as it seems there is nothing new here.
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
I haven’t read his book so I don’t know how “deep” this “tell-all” goes, but the little I’ve read he basically said that Bush’s goal was to establish a democracy in Iraq in order to refactor the Middle East, and pushed the WMD angle because he didn’t believe that the public would support such an ambitious goal by itself.
Haven’t those of us with at least half a brain known that for a long time now?
And doesn’t that pretty much discredit all of the conspiracy theories (“Bush went in to steal oil!”, “It’s all a conspiracy to make Haliburton rich!”, “Bush doesn’t care about Democracy!”)?
[/quote]
That was the goal all along wasn’t it? The WMD angle was just the excuse but it is clear the policy was to remake the middle east so it wasn’t dominated by brutal tyrants and Islamic extremists.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
That was the goal all along wasn’t it? The WMD angle was just the excuse but it is clear the policy was to remake the middle east so it wasn’t dominated by brutal tyrants and Islamic extremists.
[/quote]
And that’s pretty worrisome. I don’t think a President, sending American men and women off to a war overseas, and spending US taxdollars, should use sleight of hand to get the people onboard. Don’t go selling the danger of Saddam having and passing off WMD’s to kill us Americans at home as the reason, while playing nation builder and society maker is the real ploy.
Wait a minute. Even though I suspect some opportunism here on his part (and I probably should not be so quick to jump to that assumption, given that I haven’t personally read even one page of the book), what he is saying is important, if it’s not a lie. If true, it means the President blatantly lied or was fed false information from his advisors that brought him to invade a country.
Now, some of you might argue that he lied for a good reason, i.e. that he wanted to “liberate” Iraq. I don’t agree with that, but even it were true that he had noble intentions, don’t you think the country, and the young soldiers and the Iraqi people, deserved to know the reason? After all, these are the people who have suffered. And what about the taxpayers who have funded this war? Didn’t they deserve to know? And the congress who agreed to use our tax dollars…didn’t they deserve to know the real reason?
I am looking forward to the Tim Russert interview with Mclellan this Sunday on “Meet The Press”.
[quote]
Zap Branigan wrote:
That was the goal all along wasn’t it? The WMD angle was just the excuse but it is clear the policy was to remake the middle east so it wasn’t dominated by brutal tyrants and Islamic extremists.
Sloth wrote:
And that’s pretty worrisome. I don’t think a President, sending American men and women off to a war overseas, and spending US taxdollars, should use sleight of hand to get the people onboard. Don’t go selling the danger of Saddam having and passing off WMD’s to kill us Americans at home as the reason, while playing nation builder and society maker is the real ploy.[/quote]
OK, so McClellan was pissed about Libby and Rove allowing him to look bad in his responses regarding Plame - but do you really think McClellan was in on the intelligence briefings and Iraq strategizing?
Per Dan Bartlett today:
I’m leaning toward thinking he wasn’t involved. Particularly because, if you think he was involved, and that he was right and believed at that time that we were going to war on false premises based on a set plan to lie to the public, the fact that he continued to serve the president at the highest levels and defended the president and the war effort is contemptuous.
He could have resigned - loudly, to draw attention to the issue at the time. Of course, he didn’t. He didn’t even resign a little bit later. He resigned after the dust settled on Plame, which was his personal issue. At the time, McClellan sold the positions he is now condemning. If he had resigned in a timely manner, the objections of his critics would have to be made on different grounds. The fact that he didn’t resign, and that he has a personal axe to grind based on Plame, might lead one to question his claims. I’m sure he’ll think of a good explanation while he’s on his publicity tour for his repackaging of “Bush Lied, People Died” articles from the New York Times…
[quote]Now, some of you might argue that he lied for a good reason, i.e. that he wanted to “liberate” Iraq. I don’t agree with that, but even it were true that he had noble intentions, don’t you think the country, and the young soldiers and the Iraqi people, deserved to know the reason? After all, these are the people who have suffered. And what about the taxpayers who have funded this war? Didn’t they deserve to know? And the congress who agreed to use our tax dollars…didn’t they deserve to know the real reason?
[/quote]
Yes.
And attempting to democratize Muslims is a fool’s errand, because they’ll just vote the “jihad and shari’ah” party back into power, as they’ve done in Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Kuwait and Turkey.
Well, I mean, there were no WMD’s found. Not even at the sites we supposedly knew contained WMD’s. But, we are playing nation builder and society maker over there.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
That was the goal all along wasn’t it? The WMD angle was just the excuse but it is clear the policy was to remake the middle east so it wasn’t dominated by brutal tyrants and Islamic extremists.
And that’s pretty worrisome. I don’t think a President, sending American men and women off to a war overseas, and spending US taxdollars, should use sleight of hand to get the people onboard. Don’t go selling the danger of Saddam having and passing off WMD’s to kill us Americans at home as the reason, while playing nation builder and society maker is the real ploy.[/quote]
Every war America has fought, including the Revolutionary War has been sold to the Ameirican people with similar tactics. If anything the information on the current war has been much more readily available.
[quote]entheogens wrote:
Wait a minute. Even though I suspect some opportunism here on his part (and I probably should not be so quick to jump to that assumption, given that I haven’t personally read even one page of the book), what he is saying is important, if it’s not a lie. If true, it means the President blatantly lied or was fed false information from his advisors that brought him to invade a country.
…
[/quote]
What lies?
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
That was the goal all along wasn’t it? The WMD angle was just the excuse but it is clear the policy was to remake the middle east so it wasn’t dominated by brutal tyrants and Islamic extremists.
And that’s pretty worrisome. I don’t think a President, sending American men and women off to a war overseas, and spending US taxdollars, should use sleight of hand to get the people onboard. Don’t go selling the danger of Saddam having and passing off WMD’s to kill us Americans at home as the reason, while playing nation builder and society maker is the real ploy.
Every war America has fought, including the Revolutionary War has been sold to the Ameirican people with similar tactics. If anything the information on the current war has been much more readily available.[/quote]
How’s that a good thing, though? If my son went to war and died, to defeat a maniac hell bent on handing off his WMD’s (which suppossedly we know the sites they’re stockpiled at, by the way) to 9-11 style terroists, and it all turned out completely wrong, I’d want the entire administration thrown out. At least for negligence, arrogance, and tunnel vision. And then, seeing the whole thing has turned into playing nation builder, with some abstract goal of remaking the middle east, I’d be doubly pissed off. And guys like McClellan would certainely sound plausible.