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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
the fact that he then goes on to say that we "had to" attack Saddam anyway because he "wouldn't allow the inspectors in."
The inspectors WERE in. We had to pull them out in order to attack.
Bush made the same statement to the press when he was sitting just inches away from Kofi Annan, who surely knew Saddam had in fact allowed the U.N. inspectors into Iraq.
Bush: Liar or idiot? It's tough to say. I'd say a little of both.
Besides being a terrible president, I'm beginning to see in the waning days of presidency just how strange he is. He truly baffles me. I knew some of his policies were odd and not well-founded, but I admit I just don't really understand what makes him tick.
10 years of refusing to comply with UN weapons inspections was reason enough for me to remove Saddam.
He obviously had possessed WMDs, and was willing to use them. Whether he still had them, I think, was and remains a moot point. Without assurance of their destruction he could reasonably be assumed to still possess them and pose a serious risk to the region and the world.
I hold Clinton responsible for not smoking his ass long before Cheney and Rumsfeld et al. got the chance to use W as their dummy.
Let's face it, W is the short, stubby, dull broken crayon of Harvard Business School. He hasn't the brains to organize a game of hopscotch.
As president, he seems to have been best at following directions.
I can only hope that soon those directions will include cleaning his cell for the remainder of his natural life.
I hate to rain on the Bush-bashing parade (I dislike him as much as anybody), but everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, thought he had WMD at the time. Including his own generals, Iran, and Europe.
We can argue about whether it was right to go to war even if he had had them, but to claim that it was wrong to go to war because in fact there were no WMD is using our hindsight 20/20 vision.
Actions must be considered in the context in which they occurred. And at the time, Hussein was actively trying to convince us that he might, could, probably did have WMD. Without actually having them. Because any proof of their actual existence would justify an attack on his country. And unluckily for him, people believed that he did.
So yeah, Bush is right to say that he wishes the intelligence had been better. I wish it had been better too. We might not have invaded if we'd known, for certain, that he didn't.
I bring this up because it bothers me when people try to rewrite history to justify their current opinions. It's important to remember what actually happened, not just what we wish actually happened.
jaydiamond and mattielisbon, thank you, I just updated the post with the Parry article and another quote I found from Hans Blix. The snippet of the interview I watched didn't include the claim that Saddam wouldn't allow in weapons inspectors. Thanks for catching that!
When Bush was asked directly if he would have invaded if it appeared there were no WMDs, he first didn't understand the question, then said that he didn't know if he would or not, but didn't think he could revisit that decision in retrospect. Those are a bit bigger than the words he used, but that was his intent in responding.
There were only two "reasons" given by Bush's administration for the illegal invasion and occupation: WMDs and a connection to 9/11. Both were transparently fabricated. Both had been thoroughly dismissed as fraudulent by experts such as, in the case of WMDs, ex-Major Scott Ritter, the U.N. arms inspector. Much of the claims, such as Saddam's supposed WMD delivery capacity were laughable for anyone with a smidgen of technical expertise. In Katie Couric's first interview with 60 Minutes, she allowed Condi Rice to continue to perpetuate the myth that the administration actually believed in the alleged WMDs.
So Bush said that if, one of those two lynchpins were missing, he still couldn't say whether or not he would have invaded.
Walsh's otherwise well written piece also buries the truth about the worst of the outcomes of the war. It would appear, from estimates such as the Johns Hopkins incidence and prevelance study, that around a million Iraqis have died violent deaths as a result of Bush's idiocy. Five million survivors have become internal or external refugees. Virtually the entire professional and middle classes have been wiped out, either dead or in exile. This is a country that Bush forced back toward if not actually into, the "stone age," even if Viet Nam-style carpet bombing was not a feature of his murderous behavior.
It's kind of a moot point about Bush at this point. We all know he's a total piece of crap as a human being. The real criticism should be directed at our ruling elite: the political "establishment," the news media, and the corporate power structure.
Somehow it was acceptable to have a completely worthless human being for president of the "United States." A military deserter, insider trader, drug and alcohol addict, who took pleasure in executions.
Not only was this acceptable, but it was preferred. Bush was not elected. The political elite, in the form of the U.S. Supreme Court, deposited him in office. Indeed, during the Bush era, criminality was the modus operandi for the political and corporate elite. The same corporate elite, I might add, that is now lining up for "bailouts."
Nothing has been learned from this. Lawrence Eagleburger, Secretary of State under Bush I, was asked during the fall campaign if Sarah Palin was qualified to be president. He answered "Not yet. But she will be." No standards. "Republicans" are almost universally criminal.
John McCain ran what was essentially a lying, fear-mongering, demagogic campaign for president. As such, that makes him a criminal. Good riddance.
The only question about Bush should be which court jurisdiction he should be remanded to - the Hague or the Federal system. I think both would be appropriate. Federal for treason, criminal negligence, lying the country into war, crony contract awards, and corruption of the justice system; the Hague for war crimes, kidnapping, torture, and murder. He could serve his several lifetimes of sentences concurrently. He should be made to work. Hard labor, I think it's called.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
