Posted on 11/19/2005 5:51:30 PM PST by neverdem
It is said that a big lie can work if it is repeated often enough. For weeks, leading Democrats have been hammering away at the Big Lie that George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Starting on Veterans Day, Bush, Dick Cheney, and others in the administration embarked on a "pushback," arguing that Bush--and many leading Democrats, including some now part of the Big Lie campaign--accurately characterized the intelligence at the time.
Bush, Cheney, and the administration have the truth on their side. Exhaustive and authoritative examinations of the prewar intelligence, by the bipartisan report of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004, by the Silberman-Robb commission in 2005, and by the British commission headed by Lord Butler, have established that U.S. intelligence agencies, and the intelligence organizations of leading countries like Britain, France, and Germany, believed that Saddam Hussein's regime was in possession of or developing weapons of mass destruction--chemical and biological weapons, which the regime had used before, and nuclear weapons, which it was working on in the 1980s.
To the charges that Bush "cherry-picked" intelligence, the commission cochaired by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb found that the intelligence available to Bush but not to Congress was even more alarming than the intelligence Congress had. The Silberman-Robb panel also concluded, after a detailed investigation, that in no instance did Bush administration authorities pressure intelligence officials to alter their findings. Much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. But Bush didn't lie about it. Some Bush supporters argue that the pushback now is a mistake, because it prevents the administration from focusing on events going forward. But the damage to Bush's credibility is real, and he needs to repair it to speak credibly about the future. At the same time, we must remember that the United States and our allies did not go to war solely because of weapons of mass destruction. There were other reasons, which Bush articulated at the time and which have been vindicated by events.
One of them was to remove from power one of the most brutal regimes on Earth. Mainstream media have enjoyed focusing on isolated prison abuses by U.S. forces and, in the past week, by Iraqis. (Have the media ever focused so closely on prison conditions in our past wars?) But these abuses are nothing compared with what the Saddam Hussein regime did every day. Rape rooms, prisoners fed into shredders, hundreds of mass graves: Do we really want to forget that the liberation of Iraq has vastly improved the lives of millions of people there?
Results. Another goal was to advance freedom and democracy in the Middle East--not just to help the people there but to change the mind-set of the region that produced the attacks of September 11. Before 2003, the dictators and authoritarian rulers of the region focused their peoples' inevitable discontent on the United States and Israel. Now the progress toward democracy in Iraq is leading Middle Easterners to concentrate on the question of how to build decent governments and decent societies. We can see the results--the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the first seriously contested elections in Egypt, Libya's giving up WMD s, the Jordanian protests against Abu Musab Zarqawi's recent suicide attacks, and even a bit of reform in Saudi Arabia. In Syria, the Washington Post' s David Ignatius reports, "People talk politics here with a passion I haven't heard since the 1980s in Eastern Europe. They're writing manifestos, dreaming of new political parties, trying to rehabilitate old ones from the 1950s."
Almost surely, none of this would have happened without the liberation of Iraq. And there democracy goes forward: Seventy-eight percent voted for the Constitution last month, and democratic parties are contesting the elections to be held next month. Against this backdrop, mainstream media headlined the call for U.S. withdrawal by Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who has long been skeptical of the war in Iraq. The propagators of the Big Lie against President Bush are trying to delegitimize not only him but also all the progress that has been made as a result of Iraq, progress both toward freedom for Middle Easterners and toward a Middle East that will no longer threaten the United States.
I am beginning to believe that the Dems are afraid that if we are successful in Iraq it will boost the Republicans in the coming elections, and they are desperate to sabotage us in Iraq merely to further their own election chances.
henh... ya think? Donks selling out America for personal political gains? nahhhh...
bttt
Two votes in the House were quite important.
Furious Dems Didn't Think GOP Would Take Murtha at His Word
House passes $49.9 billion in spending cuts
Republicans in House Pass $50 Billion in Budget Cuts WaPo's version, what else is new?
This is a great article by Barone. However, I wish these things would be articulated to the press and the public by the administration. They seem to have let partisan hacks obscure the huge successes we have had in the WOT. In short we need a much better PR dept.
Hillary camps are not beyond the beast.
Not True! He got it half right. They have no big problem with progress toward freedom for the ME. The ONLY thing they are trying to do is delegitimize President Bush, to keep history from labeling him a "great" President. It is only because of this single goal that they need to delegitimize progress toward freedom for the ME.
This guy comes very close to hitting the nail on the head.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1525527/posts
The big lie is that Bush Lied.
"NEVER FORGET" I never will Ronnie. I never got there like you did and I've always wondered why. In 1970 I was in the U. S. Air Force for about six months then. I got to Naha AFB Okinawa and stayed there for about six months then the base closed and I got sent back to the States. I know Viet Nam went on for five more years though less and less people were going. I know what went on back then and how you guys that were in country were treated when you got home. I'm with you and I stand up for all our Brothers and Sisters that are in country today. Guys like us are the only ones that protect them here at home. I want them to accomplish the mission and I know they will as long as we keep the enemy from within from keeping them from it back here at home. God Bless you Ronnie and all our Brothers and Sisters in uniform today, they are the BEST of the BEST. If it wasn't for all of us AMERICA wouldn't be what SHE is. Thanks BIG BROTHER!
I second that. Thank you!
It is long overdue that the President started pushing back the swarms of lies with the truth, but at least the process has started.
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HILLARY was on the side of our terrorist enemy, Communist North Vietnam Dictator HO CHI MINH, during the Vietnam War long ago.
Nothing has changed since.
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There's one other question to ask with all this intelligence uncertainty - if you have to guess wrong, which way would that be?
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Sacrifice begets Sacrifice.
MEL's -PASSION- sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085111/posts
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RICK RESCORLA, R.I.P.
Lifesaving Veteran-Battlle of IA DRANG-1965
Lifesaving Veteran-Bombing of WTC-1993
Lifesaving Casualty-Airstrikes on WTC-2001
http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
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Thanks for the ping!
BUMP!
You are quite welcome. Thank you for the compliment!
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