... a TV commercial defending President Bush's handling of the Iraq War, saying Democrats are attacking him "for attacking the terrorists."
Actually what the commercial actually says is that "Some" (not "Democrats" or even "some Democrats") "are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists". Is Cohen lying or simply misinformed? Or just saying that the shoe fits?
Saddam Hussein lives, and Osama Bin Laden lives.
Oddly these claims are unsourced. Cohen knows these things how?
None of the reasons the Bush administration gave for attacking Iraq - and none of the reasons cited in the congressional resolution authorizing the war - has proved to be true.
Really? Here is the text of the War Powers resolution. Notice first of all that there is no official list of "reasons" for the war. There is a section urging Bush to try diplomacy at the UN (which he did). There is a section authorizing Bush to use force to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" (well, he didn't?) and to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" (certainly ousting Hussein accomplished that). Then the President is reminded that by statute he must inform Congress within 48 hours of using force etc., a standard-sounding "this is why we're allowed to pass this resolution" clause, and related stuff.
There is no "Official List Of Reasons We, The Congress, Are Voting For This War Powers Resolution" I can find. (As far as I know, some congressmen may have voted for it just cuz they don't like Hussein's beard, and others just cuz they want to be re-elected and think all their constituents are warmongering monsters who love wars. Who knows?) So on that note Cohen's point is highly misleading; there are no "reasons cited" in the War Powers resolution at all (independent of UN resolutions and vaguely defined "national security") so there's no way those nonexistent "reasons" can have been disproven.
As for "the reasons the Bush administration gave for attacking Iraq", it seems to me that one of them was "Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained: by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." . Which, regardless of what Cohen says, has proved to be true. (You say this wasn't actually a Reason Bush Gave For Attacking Iraq? Sure it was. He urged attacking Iraq in this speech. This was one of the things he said in that speech. That makes it a Reason He Gave. Again, there is no Official List Of Reasons submitted or registered anywhere that I know of, so this one is as good as any.) Another reason at that link was that, about various materials, "He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them." Which, also, was completely and 100% true. He hadn't accounted for those materials and he hadn't given any evidence that he destroyed them. I could go on but the fact is that it's rather easy to identiy "reasons Bush gave" which are, on the face of it, True.
But Cohen said that "None" (which means, not one) of those reasons turned out to be true.
So that is false. Well, is Cohen lying, or simply misinformed?
We have found no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda
First, that is false.
Second, ironically, this item was never a Reason He Gave for attacking Iraq. It happens to be true but even if it weren't, Bush never publicly stated such a link in the first place. So what the heck is Cohen talking about? By implying that (1) Bush said "there's a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda" and (2) there is no connection whatsoever, Cohen perpretrates a double-whammy of a lie.
no evidence that Iraq had an extensive weapons of mass destruction program
Seems to beg the question of what is "extensive" and what isn't. No doubt, if I were to show him the centrifuges and bacteria strains and the like, he'd just shrug and say "hmph well I don't consider that 'extensive'". Not worth arguing over semantics on Cohen's distorted terms.
It is true that Saddam was a beast with an appalling human rights record, but as bad as he was - or is - that was not the reason the administration gave for going to war.
Like hell it wasn't. See Bush's State of the Union address I linked to above. "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." Nobody can explain to me why this doesn't qualify as a Reason The Administration Gave.
I would like to believe that some well-intentioned people simply misread the intelligence data and concluded what they already thought they knew - namely, that Saddam posed such a grave threat to American security that he had to be dealt with pronto.
Actually, the argument was never that "Saddam posed such a grave threat to American security that he had to be dealt with pronto" in the first place. If it were, Bush wouldn't have needed a war powers resolution or public debate or to go to the UN at all, he'd have just ordered a strike. Cohen here tears down a straw man he's built. It's based on the idea that wars are only ok if someone is "such a grave threat to American security that he had to be dealt with pronto". This may be what Cohen personally believes but there are those who disagree with him and hold to a doctrine of "pre-emption". Bush is one of them, if these words are any indication: " Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."
Cohen is trying to disallow the pre-emption doctrine by verbal fiat, instead of actually arguing against it on substance. He pretends that only imminent threats justify wars and then proceeds to explain that Iraq wasn't an imminent threat even though everybody already agrees about that.
Yet, as Thomas Powers, an expert on intelligence, points out, Secretary of State Powell "made 29 claims about Iraqi weapons, programs, behaviors, events and munitions" in his UN presentation, and none of them has been borne out.
Wow, he pulls this "Thomas Powers, an expert on intelligence" out of a hat, like a rabbit in a magic trick. No link or citation, just a name and his Authority. I guess that settles it then!
I had to do a Google search to find out what the hell Cohen is talking about and it seems that perhaps he's referring to this, which I'll have to read and respond to later. Sure would've been nice if Cohen would've summarized Powers' findings, methodology, or... something, in more detail than he did. It's easy to just point at an Expert ("believe him! he's an Expert! and he agrees with me! so there.") but this is a rather cheap ploy.
If there was merely an intelligence failure, it was massive and inexcusable....
Remember, now Cohen's jumping off from his "apparently they thought Iraq was an Imminent Threat" straw man, which was never the argument to begin with. This is a red herring.
The other possibility is that the top people in the Bush administration knew that the stated grounds for war were bogus.
Nice. Exclude the reality and set up a false dichotomy ("either they thought there was an Imminent Threat due to false intelligence, or they were Lying about there being an Imminent Threat"). The true explanation (they knew there wasn't an imminent threat and that wasn't the point, because they wanted to pre-empt Iraq on a medium to long time scale) is nowhere to be found. Clever
If that's the case, then we have an exercise in presidential power that makes Watergate look trivial.
Of course, if it's not, then we have an exercise in fallacious and disingenuous journalism that makes Michael Moore look honest.
The two G.I.s whose bodies were mutilated in Iraq the other day -
-- "mutilated" already debunked by another poster.
just to cite two American casualties - may have died for a lie.
Yes, apparently they died so that smug journos could stand on their dead bodies and lie about why they were sent, for perceived political gain. Or is that not what Cohen meant?
The only way to find out what really happened is through the political process.
LOL. Rarely is "the political process" a good way to find out "what really happened", in any context. Cohen's gone from simple lies to outright surrealist absurdity.
I hope it doesn't work. [i.e. Bush getting re-elected]
Well duh. That was the entire point of this little column, no?