Here’s something that President Bush said yesterday, in the middle of an exchange
with Helen
Thomas.
I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically.
That’s why I went to the Security Council. That’s why it was important to
pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, Disarm, disclose
or face serious consequences. And therefore, we worked with the world. We
worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And
when he chose to deny the inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then
I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did. And the world
is safer for it.
Just take a long, deep breath and try to take that in. Can you feel it washing
over your skin, seeping into your pores and polluting your blood stream? I know
you can. An interesting mental exercise might be to dig deep and try to find
a single truth in that statement. You may have to get very meta, and simply
accept that there are words there. Words are lovely things. Were they spoken
in some wildly different order, by a different human being altogether, these
words might produce a truthful statement.
When, for instance, in the lead up to Operation Clusterfuck, did Iraq "deny
the inspectors?" Was it some sort of a weird new age meditation, where
they placed bags over their heads, crystals around their necks, hummed sweetly
and pretended the inspecters weren’t there? I thought the United States was
the country that forced the U.N. inspectors to leave Iraq prior to finishing
the job. I thought that was on us. Perhaps, I’m a loon?
Then, I wonder how the world is safer. Somehow, a civil war in one of the most
volatile regions on earth, with a large portion of the United States military
sitting in the way, doesn’t strike me as all that safe a world. Perhaps it’s
just safer for crap. Yes, I think that’s it. The world is safer for crap. Bold-faced
presidential bullshit with regards to the biggest foreign policy fuckup in a
generation, is accepted as par for the course. Nary an eyelash is batted and
hell, it’s even applauded in some circles. Three years into abject failure,
and there’s still no end to the bullshit in sight. Indeed, the Washington Post
Editorial Board proclaimed
this morning that Mr. Bush "sounded authentic" yesterday. Ah, the
sweet sound of authenticity. The world is safe for lies. (via Susie)
I think this little guy sums up how I feel quite nicely.
remove Saddam. That part is true. The rest is typical bush bullshit that makes me feel stupider just for reading it.
I would say that every statement in the paragraph is the opposite of the truth. Even the bit about removing Saddam, because Bush says that he had this difficult decision to make after Saddam chose to deny the inspectors access. In fact, we know that Bush had decided to remove Saddam well before any of these events – possibly even before he assumed office.
Lies, lies, lies, lies… and will the media report that?
Well said, Chris, thank you.
Very nice comment. That’s a really wonderful photo!
Thanks! I really love that picture. I use it whenever I can. That little guy communicates something that’s so hard to capture with words, so why resist?
The “safety for lies” razzle dazzle is typical when tyranny is on the march trying to gain support from the very populace whose rights and freedoms it seeks to eradicate.
It’s an expression of the same dynamic involved that turns a (democratic) society based on Laws AND Order into an (authoritarian) society based on the choice between Law OR Order.
Even a casual look at the history of overthrown democracies shows this pattern, this transition, in virtually every instance. Scare people with enough lies and promise them safety if they support you, and order and safety will triumph almost every time over adherence to and respect for the law and for the truth.
and my sig speak for me:
Nice take on the lies. The photo is really excellent. You could use it for depicting so many emotions. Touching pic indeed.
UN Inspectors were on the ground. That wasn’t supposed to be part of the narrative and Bush wants everyone to forget it was part of the narrative.
But against all expecations Saddam blinked, he let in Inspectors and they found nothing. Do not let this swirl down the Memory Hole, this is the smoking gun that proves that the Bush Administration just wanted to get its war on. If they had, or even thought they had, hard information on the location of Iraqi WMD, and if the goal as stated was to disarm Saddam, they had a legal obligation to share that information with the Inspectors. When Bush went to the American people in February 2003 and claimed that the decision to go to war had not been made and could be avoided by Saddam disarming and disclosing he just wanted everyone to ignore the fact that Saddam had in fact disclosed and that UN Inspectors were pretty far down the road to showing that he had in fact disarmed.
By December it was clear Saddam did not have deployable WMDs. The Inspectors would have picked that up in the first week. By January it was clear he did not have operational WMD (i.e. hidden away, but potentially deployable). BushCo simply continued to blow smoke and pretend that UN Inspectors simply did not exist.
I didn’t expect Saddam to blink. I fully expected that US troops would find some remnants of the Chemical weapons program sufficient to sell the invasion post facto. I expected these asshats would just get away with the whole thing. They didn’t. Inspectors were on the ground finding nothing, the proper course was to allow them to continue to inspect until it was clear Iraq in fact had no such weapons, which we now know to be the case. But Bush chose to get his war on just assuming he would be able to cover his ass when the time came.
Well tough shit Dubya. You lied, GI’s died.
Bush relies (pun intended) on American amnesia and the hired press. He always makes me wretch and I turn off whatever I hear him on as soon as possible.
Great writing in the commentary though!
…then there is this article from NO QUARTER..
such a good read