The New York Times and the Truth are mutually exclusive.

We haven't had another 9/11. Perhaps, even by accident, Bush's invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. I think it was all about "Daddy," as well. But it has caused a great many of the Islamic extremists to travel to Iraq and die in the process of trying to kill US troops.

Everybody thought Saddam had WMD's. Even a lot of his own underlings. That's what he wanted the world to think. Even that editorial admits that it wasn't until AFTER the invasion that we knew he didn't.

"Everybody thought Saddam had WMD's"

Um, no. Actually, pretty much only the US seems to have thought Iraq had WMDs.

Remember, if you will, that there was a UN commission that had been continually inspecting Iraq since 1991, without ever finding anything of importance. Most of the rest of the world looked at this commission, and the experts on it (and they were experts in their fields) and their reputations, and believed their reports. Granted, Iraq was not particularly cooperative, but the commission nonetheless managed a credible job.

Bush's State of the Union address two months before the attack was fascinating. If he had the kind of concrete information on weapons he implied, then the US could have pointed the UN inspectors to the WMDs, they would have been found, and the whole UN (or at least all of Europe) would have sanctioned the attack.

That speech was very, very carefully worded. When listening to it, it sounded as though Bush was saying "Iraq has x missiles, y tons of nerve agent¸ etc, etc". I went online afterwards to read the transcript. What craftsmanship! There were all of these little weasel words that he had carefully underemphasized: "Could", "Might". "Had" (in 1991) instead of "has". Whoever wrote the speech was a master - it was deliberately designed to give an impression quite at odds with its literal content.

Speaking with my relatives back in the States, who had been "prepped" with months of White House propaganda: they bought the speech hook, line and sinker. In fact, they flat out refused to believe me, when I told them what I had found in the transcript.

The point is: there is a reason that the US was unable to convince many other countries to support the attack - the other countries knew better. The interesting question is: did the people in the Bush administration know they were wrong? Did they set up this attack for some hidden reasons that have never been revealed? Or did they get so caught up in their own conspiracy theories that they started to believe their own propaganda?

Most likely the latter. As Napoleon aptly observed, incompetence is often the simplest and most likely explanation...

> We're not going to establish
> a democracy

A1. Says who?

A2. You think we have a choice?

> not our job; we're not
> the world's policeman

B1. We shelter Canada, Europe, Japan, and various other destinations. It's several trillion dollars too late to be saying we shouldn't be bother.

B2. Do you think the United States, and civilization generally, doesn't have an important stake in the distribution of that oil?

> why? Because the brash
> jerk from Texas

C1. This always gets personal. People --Democrats especially-- should never forget that voters (including those in the Senate) supported this invasion.

C2. This "other people's kids" thing was a schoolyard stupidity forty years ago. It could be forgiven back then, because it's users were children. Now it's heard in the salons of Brentwood during white-wine parties, but its not more thoughtful an expression.

In what conflict could this notion not be used? Should FDR have fought WWII with only his own children?

...shouldn't be botherED.

I need to hire an english major to come over and type this stuff

"Um, no. Actually, pretty much only the US seems to have thought Iraq had WMDs."

Heh. Not quite.

It's sickening. One side is dishonest about the industrial capacity of Iraq, claiming they could never, in a million years, make any WMDs; the other is dishonest, claiming the two wrongs make a right fallacy, in that one nation can have them and another cannot.

"It's not going to get better"

Disagree. Right now L.A.-based money is investigating the possibility of investing in reconstructing Baghdad's Zoo and primary park area (think Central Park, but blown up now). Lots of people are poo-pooing it as "dropping a Disneyland" in Iraq, but its really a cooperative venture with locals to rebuild some civic pride.

Nation-building doesn't occur overnight. It doesn't even occur over-decade. But if there's a void, I'd rather see capitalism fill it than some of the nut-jobs that would take over upon our departure.

Which means I have to hold my nose and vote for McCain.

Some irony from GW:

"You can’t pressure democracies"

http://www.muckraked.com/wordpress/2008/06/03/bush-well-be-in-iraq-for-40-years-hamas-election-was-good-thing/

"one who got out of the kind of military service where he'd be in harm's way"

Amy, you really should lay off making judgements about things where you know nothing.

Bush volunteered to fly F-102 and F-106 single-engine interceptors. Ask anyone who was a fighter pilot what it was like trying to get life insurance in the 1960s; you simply couldn't buy it at any price, because single-engine fighters in those days crashed very, very often.

You also ignore the fact that Bush volunteered for a tour in Vietnam; pilots with more hours got the slots instead.

There's a reason Bush gets respect from military people. They respect the service he gave to the country in the Air National Guard.

I have to conclude that this post is an obvious troll. No one in full possession of their faculties, or even remotely aware of the facts on the ground, could possibly believe such rubbish. The first problem is sourcing from the New York Times; it's a safe bet that whatever the Times reports, the facts are usually the opposite.

And if GWB lied about WMD, how can it be that prominent Democrats were telling the truth for the previous 5 years when they were saying identically the same thing?

For a more accurate and informed view, here are a couple of considerably more useful resources.

Gordon you lying peice of shit.

Bush joined the gaurd in the spring of 1968.

Guess what, in 1968 the F-102 was pulled out of the war, and the F-106 never left the states to begin with.

Seems to me the Bush NEVER would have been sent to Nam cause he was conviently trained in aircraft which were never going to leave US airspace.

But you are right about one thing. You really should open your mouth when you dont know what the fuck your talking about.

There was one more thing I wanted to say, what was it?

Oh yeah, eat shit and die

Y'know, they use an awful lot of fancy words to dance around having to just say in plain English, that junior was LYING. But his pals at Halliburton and Exxon are sure making a lot of money as war profiteers, so I guess the war isn't a total disaster...

I have to conclude that this post is an obvious troll. No one in full possession of their faculties, or even remotely aware of the facts on the ground, could possibly believe such rubbish. The first problem is sourcing from the New York Times; it's a safe bet that whatever the Times reports, the facts are usually the opposite.

And if GWB lied about WMD, how can it be that prominent Democrats were telling the truth for the previous 5 years when they were saying identically the same thing?

For a more accurate and informed view, I'd strongly recommend "War And Decision" by Douglas Feith, as well as "Moment of Truth In Iraq" by the indispensable Michael Yon. For a learned discussion of the cassus belli in Iraq, I'd also recommend "The Threatening Storm" by Kenneth Pollack." Significantly, this last was published a year before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Well, there's another funny thing... Haliburton was there during the Clinton administration, too.

So they must have been performing just fine.

So much hate. So few know more than one name in government.

Of COURSE it was a revenge move. I thought everyone knew it then, and was just playing along with the reasoning he offered, like turning a blind eye when my kids "hide" and ask me to find them. "Noooo, I can't see you".

How the man got reelected is a good question. Actually, it's not. He cheated. Hmmm, the hotly contesteds state "happens" to be where his brother is governer. Let's think that one. Oh, and when I went to vote for Kerry and handed over my voter card, they told me I'd already voted. Gee, I wonder who for?

That anyone could possibly not know it now is just mind-boggling. I guess maybe there really are lots of sheep masquerading as Americans. Baaaaaaaa.......

momof3 -

If it was a revenge move, it would have been more easily accomplished with a carpet-bombing of Baghdad. Believing that the Iraq was was "revenge for daddy" is on a par with believing in the tooth fairy.

And in the "hotly contested" state of Florida, the fucked-up counties were all run by Democrats.

Of course, it doesn't fit the narrative, so you just assume that Bush and his evil minions must have done something there to ensure his victory.

It doesn't matter that two years later, in Miami-Dade county, one Janet Reno went to her polling place to vote in the Democratic primary contest for Governor, only to find it locked, and nobody in sight to run it.

I suppose you'll blame her Democratic opponent for that. Or maybe Bush did that too?

Or maybe Florida is just incompetent and ought to be stripped of its right to vote until they get their shit together.

Well, the tooth fairy does exist. It's me, and millions of other parents. Sooooo, not a great argument for you there :) My older brother was one of the top lawyers IN florida, working for the republican party aka Bush, during that hotly contested episode. And let me tell you, unless you are an insider, you do NOT know what went on there. My brother and many others have now switched sides, in large part because of what he and they have seen Bush do since his lawyer-assisted power-grab.

And really our whole election system needs stripping and overhauling.

Carpet bombing might have been quicker revenge, but he needed to look plausible and moral. Iraq had no direct link to 9/11, yet we took off after Irag and largely ignored Aphganistant-the real hub of Al Queda, at least back then.

If we wanted to get rid of Saddam, it should have been in the first gulf war. I'm not saying it didn't need doing. But then we need to go in and overthrow every genocidal terrorist-sheilding dictator, and we just don't have the resources for that. There are a lot of them.

Hey Gordon, interesting post.

I'd be hard-pressed, though, to imagine that the USA wouldn't pay life insurance benefits to a service member who died flying his fighter jet (or from advanced halitosis, as long as he was still commissioned or enlisted).

As to his brave service, well, the waiting list to avoid active duty was gigantic and anyone wanting to jump the line would have to be very well connected indeed.

Like Bush, for example.

All the arguments about him not completing his service that revolve around his "lost" records crack me up. I recently submitted a request for my service records and health records and I was amazed at what they had on me. The file was two inches thick.

But then, my Dad wasn't Deputy Director of the CIA, either.

this is so sickening, even as a conservative, to see people still defending bush.

seriously, just jump off a cliff already.

"we broke it, so we have to fix it" is like saying I came into your house, killed your father, and now you have no other choice but to be solely responsible for taking care of the kids. Genius. Brilliant!

Get these neo-liberal Bush apologists out of the way. they've done enough harm as it is.

j.d., you'll get my support the moment you recognize that Congress has Constitutional duties they have shirked. They can sit back and watch the President get the blame because, literally, his is the only name most of the public knows.

I hope you're not one of those people.

I would adore it if someone here could actually list the things the President can do without Congressional approval. I won't be holding my breath, because hate is all that most people seem to be interested in.

For instance, when someone claims he escaped serious military duty because his father was a CIA official, they'll skip the part about that being in 1976 - well after Vietnam - because it doesn't help the hate.

"the brash jerk from Texas"

HE IS NOT FROM TEXAS!!!!!!!!! He lived here for a while. If living somewhere a bit makes you from there, I am from 17 different places!! He is NOT ours!!!

Bush was raised in Texas and was governor of Texas. He's "from" Texas.

Thanks to Scottkelly and Radwaste for those links. I've listed those things too many times here over the years to bother doing it anymore, so it's good that someone still cares.

Also, GHW Bush was in fact the full Director of Central Intelligence in our Bicentennial year, and not just a Deputy.

Also, W Bush is very much a Texan, twice elected to the (recently burned) Governor's mansion. He's *yours*!

Anyone know where gordan disappered too?

what duties have the shirked? it wasn't a congressionally authorize war. the war was started under Article II powers, thus since expanded beyond comprehension. Congress has some power, but I fault the judiciary for allowing this to continue indefinetely (See Doe v. Bush). Bush gets the blame because he's using presidnetial powers.

What can the president do without congressional authority? For starters, pardons, negotiating treaties, commanding the armed forces for limited engagements, for starters...

Do you know of the Congressional vote authorizing the administration's actions after literally a decade of Iraq defying UN resolutions?

Do you know Congress has the budgetary power to force withdrawal of all forces from Iraq?

Read Feith's book. If you disagree with his conclusions, go read the original documents and draw your own conclusions. Or read the Times and Scotty McClellan and believe what you want to believe.

Mark EVERYONE defys UN resolutions

Gordon has a living to earn, so he doesn't have time to troll the comments all day.

Yes, Bush flew the F-102 and F-106. Both were designed as interceptors for continental defense. Had he been accepted for the Vietnam slot, he would have retrained in another fighter. It would have taken three months, tops. Pilots do this all the time. In 1967 they started retraining *tanker* pilots to fly the F-105; that's a lot more complicated transition.

And Bush didn't have to jump to the head of any line. He was a Yale graduate applying for a pilot slot. The requirements for pilots are a lot higher than for any enlisted position, or even for non-rated officers. The ANG wanted him, and more like him.

Now if he wanted to fly cargo, well, there might have been a line for that, since reserve and guard cargo pilots are prime candidates for airline slots. But he chose to fly the most dangerous aircraft available.

And yes, there was servicemen's life insurance. I'm not sure what the benefit was in 1968, but it was only $10,000 when I joined the Air Force in 1980. That's why pilots wanted more; because it was the bare minimum.

i'll pass on reading Feith or the New York Times. I rarely read anyone who is liberal anymore. it's just not a good use of time.