Don't Believe the Hype.
One of these days, I'm going to have to start using this pulpit on a regular basis. *sigh*.
Right, time to get political. Currently, the administration of the office of the president of the United States, or "BuchCo" for short, is on the defensive, rocked by scandals and their web of lies snapping apart. As is the norm for this group, they try to absolve themselves by attacking others to bring them down. "The best defense is a good offense", in essence. You can see this sort of play in rape trials, for example, where the defense won't try to disprove that their client raped someone, but, instead, that the woman is a dirty dirty whore who lead their client on, provoked it, and so forth. Destroy the witness and they can't trust her. The truth doesn't matter to them, justice doesn't matter to them, the damage that they do to someone doesn't matter, only that they, themselves, get paid.
Which brings us to BushCo.
Your current talking points being spun out of the Republican Machine are as follows:
1) Democrats who are now upset over the war, but who voted for the use of force, have no right to complain since they authorized the war.
2) They saw the exacty same intelligence as BushCo, so, the proof was solid. The failure is, thus, not with the president, but, instead, is with the Intelligence Community.
3) You can't rewrite history about why we went to war.
Pretty impressive, despite being lies across the board. They have balls. Huge ones. This is called "The Big Lie", and one that people are far more willing to believe than smaller ones. Problem is, the truth is already out there.
Let's take a look, shall we?
1) On the matter of force authorization, we should first note that, despite President Bush's endless mentioning of our being at war, that we are not, in fact, at war. Congress, and Congress alone, has the power to declare war and has not done so.
Let me repeat that.
We are not, and have never been, at war with either Afghanistan or Iraq.
Surprised?
The use of force authorization was, in fact, a political screen. The basic push was similar to the Clinton use of force several years ago ... Find the areas where WMDs are being manufactured, hit them with missiles and bombs, watch as Saddam's capability is utterly eradicated, then clamp down trade restriction to make sure they don't get rebuilt. This works quite well, as President Bush's hand-picked weapons inspectors reported before having to run out of Iraq before the new wave of bombs hit. There's a rather large difference between "In order to make him agree to UN decisions, blow some things up," and, "Conquer the country." The latter, which they claim was inferred, is a power exclusive to Congress. There's a reason for that.
2) The information lie is an interesting because of how easy it is to punch right through. Congress doesn't have access to CIA reports like the president does. A few select members can get access, but, that's roughly five, who are not allowed to pass that information around, due to security reasons. This is a good thing, because some senators, and several members of the House, are somewhat loose with things that shouldn't be told. Best to keep that sort of major information under lock and key, less, for example, a CIA agent's cover be blown. But that's a different thing.
You see, the CIA did deliver information to the top about Saddam, finding no link to 9-11, finding no evidence of Saddam having the ability to make WMD, and finding no evidence of him having secret reserves of these weapons. This report was given to the Vice President, Dick Cheney, who routinely handled such matters.
He wasn't happy.
Cheney, along with other key members of the administration, belong to a group known as teh New American Century. I'll let you look them up yourself. The short form is that they wanted Saddam gone and the US to take over the area ... in 1988. They've pushed for it for years and, in truth, decades, since talk of it first came up in 1978. This is why during the very first meeting of the amdinistration, January 20th, 2001, they talked of finding a way to topple Saddam.
So, now, we've had 9-11, all the evidence points to Osama bin Laden as the culprit, absolutely nothing points to Saddam, and the report has just been given to teh Vice President. Now, most people would nod, accept this, drop the report on the President's desk, and say, "Osama's the guy. Let's get him."
That wouldn't work with the agenda, however. There's nothing to bomb in Afghanistan. More importantly, there's no oil there. Donald Rumsfield has a great line here, where he laments not having anything to bomb in Afghanistan so goes ahead and suggests bombing Iraq instead. Again, that one's a matter of public record, so, go take a gander. Rummy, by the by? A member of New American Century. Funny how that works.
So, since the intel wouldn't work with the agenda, he, instead, sends the report back to the CIA, deaming it unsatisfactory. He instead has a lovely thing formed, the Office of Special Plans, the most non-insidious name ever, I think you'll agree. The Office of Special Plans has a single goal, stated when it was formed: To find evidence that links Saddam to 9-11. Didn't matter how weak this evidence was, how untrustworthy the source, or even if it was a flat-out lie that the intelligence community had already debunked... if it showed a link, it should be stamped O.K. and added to the file. Once this file was filled with rumor and innuendo, it was vetted by the Vice President, who then presented it to the President, who was shocked, SHOCKED at the connections.
That ginned up report is what was used to win over congress, by the by. When "The saw the same intelligence that we did" was mentioned, that's what they mean. It's a very wel-balanced lie that doesn't hold up, but, if you aren't aware of the trick, you buy into.
Which brings us to #3, the rewriting of history.
Here's a fun notation for you: There have been over twenty stated reasons for our going to war. As one would fail to ignite the American public, it was shunted aside and a new one rolled out. Some time-honored classics include:
Saddam was in cahoots with bin Laden and attacked us on 9-11. Never explicitly stated, since even the vetted evidence couldn't create a positive link, but, boy, was it implied. Even today, the president will tie 9-11 in with any discussion of Iraq. Just pick a speach of his ... any will do ... and listen. For the record, bin Laden hated Saddam, a secular leader, for not instituting Islamic law and for working with the Americans for so long. Al-Qaeda actually attacked Iraq with several terrorist acts.
We had POWs still in Iraq being tortured! Didn't get much play, but, very quietly, the status of Michael Speicher, an American pilot, was changed from KIA (Killed in Action)to MIA (Missing in Action). Speicher, you probably don't know, was the first casualty of war from 1991's Desert Storm, his plane shot down in the opening moments of the war. Very much dead, Donald Rumsfeld (There's that name again) had his status changed based on information from intelligence sources ... this was the report from, that's right, the Office of Special Plans. There was a quiet drumbeat let out that he was not, in fact, dead, but was captured and being tortured for information (for eleven years), and that we had to go to war to free him, as well as any other POWs. If you don't have connections to a veteran's group or a POW survivor, you probably didn't hear this, as it was far too long a shot to take seriously and was rolled into the next of the reasons. For the record? After we conquered Iraq, there was no record of any POW being kept after Desert Storm ended and Speicher was returned to KIA status.
Drone planes could bomb New York with anthrax, ahhhhh!!! ... Only the drone that Saddam had (He had two) were, in fact, spy drones, the sort that teh US uses to eyeball troop movements on the ground. These are about the size of a man, and can fly about three hundred miles. With a good tail wind, this would allow him to almost reach Israel, sure, but it can't even crosss the Med Sea, let alone the Atlantic Ocean. This one takes advantage of th typical US Citizen's problem with geography. This drone could have landed in New York City, sure ... if it was launched from Boston, Philidelphia, or Washington DC. Iraq? A lil' bit further. These two drones, by the by, weren't set up with bomb racks and weren't air-worthy, due to a lack of spare parts from the Clinton embargo.
Weapons of Mass Destruction! WMD! Yeah, had had some. Used them on his own people after Desert Storm, to quell an uprising. Those are the ones we sold him, by the by. Donlad Rumsfeld (huh!) was a chief member of that sell, where we armed Saddam to go after Iran, since they were The Enemy and Saddam was a west-friendly secular leader. He was our ally from the moment he took office, by the by, until 1991, a good 13 year run in America's pocket. Iran, by the by, we also armed, in order to make money that was then given to the Contras in El Salvador, in teh Iran-Contra scandal. They needed those weapons because our buddy Saddam was doing so well with the wepaons that we gave him that the Iranians needed something to fight back with. At any rate, Saddam was never able to make them himself ... we wouldn't give him the technology, since, hey, you can't sell Anthrax to someone that can grow his own, but he had a decent supply that got used up. The facilities he made to try and replicate the stuff, again, were blown up by President Clinton and were never rebuilt due to the Clinton Embargo. In the three years that we've been in control of Iraq, there has been one, and only one, cache of WMD found: A set of artillery shells that were buried in *1992*, near the Kurdish region. These shells were rusted out and utterly unusuable and, in truth, were more likely to give you tetnus than be used in a cannon. They were useless. This cache was about a dozen in all, the rest of the pile (Of about a thousand) had been destroyed by UN Weapons Inspectors who, it turns out, are actually quite good at their job.
Saddam was defying UN resolutions! Take a peek at how many *we're* in violation of, sometime, or Israel. If this is why you invade a country, then pretty much everyone but Switzerland is in deep. Ironicly, the Bush Administration ha sbeen nothing but dismissive of the UN both before and after the invasion, supporting it as a noble institution only long enough to win support for the attack. Note that current UN calls to look into the mistreatment of prisoners by the US is ... being defied. D'oh.
Regime Change! This final reason for war, slipped in as we were actually invading, this is now touted as why we went in. Mind you, Saddam offered to give himself up, but the offer was turned aside by BushCo, who were pushing for the invasion. Was Saddam a horror? Hell yes. Rape camps, brutal treatment of criminals, and so on, a right nasty bastard. He was also number twenty-one on the most terrible dictators list. Yes, Saddam's a bad guy, but there were twenty others *worse* than him. Why weren't we attcking them instead? These twenty fellows had smaller armies, smaller countries, and were begging for help from anyone. Liberia? The Sudan? North Korea? Naaah ... let's go kick around Saddam, the toothless guy we have pinned in and under so many sanctions that he'll never rebuild. Note that we haven't overturned any of the rest of these fellows since. Saddam and only Saddam.
Can't rewrite history indeed.
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