The Next Time You Say, 'Bush Lied, People Died' -- Think

Listening to National Public Radio on the way home from work, I found the interview -- at least at first -- fun enough.

NPR's Terry Gross interviewed comedian/actor Will Ferrell, actor John C. Reilly and writer/director Adam McKay -- to promote a new film.

All yukked about their careers, and then the interviewer asked Adam McKay how he and Ferrell began their collaboration years ago on "Saturday Night Live." "We had several writers writing a lot of the political stuff," said McKay. "But yeah, I had written a couple pretty big ones with Will. We actually wrote a sketch right after (Bush) was elected where Dick Cheney came out and said, 'Now a message from the president of the United States,' and it was Dick Cheney. And he was telling everyone, 'If you make less than $250,000, turn the channel right now because this doesn't apply to you.' And then he would say, 'If you make less than $10 million, turn the channel. What I'm about to say doesn't apply to you,' until finally it was a billion dollars. And he literally said, 'Put all your money in defense stocks. We're going to start a lot of wars. Oh my God, we're going to make a fortune off oil.' We wrote the most absurd things for him. And Will comes in as George Bush and he's found a stray dog in the parking lot and he's asking Cheney if he can keep him. And then he leaves, and Cheney goes on to talk about how we're going to rip this country off."

Then McKay took off his comic-writer hat and turned somber. Speaking seriously, without humor or satire, he said, "And I looked at the sketch about a year ago, and it's all completely accurate. And sadly it had -- "

I pulled into a restaurant, where I stayed less than an hour. I got back into my car, the radio still on NPR, but this time a different host, and a very different subject matter. Wounded Iraq war vets told their stories.

Staff Sgt. Jay Wilkerson: "Two IEDs hit my Humvee. The first IED hit the left door of the passenger (compartment) and blew the door off the Humvee, and the scout, who was behind the driver, he was killed. His body went with the door. His legs stayed in the vehicle. His name was Staff Sgt. Robert Hernandez. He was also my best friend. And the second RPG missile came, and it came inside the Humvee and exploded. And that's where the shrapnel went everywhere. And at that time, I was knocked unconscious. I woke up in Walter Reed Hospital.

"My family was coming in to see me. I mean family members like my brother, my mother, my sister, were coming and hugging me and kissing -- and I was like, 'Who are these people kissing me?' I didn't know who they were. And I had to learn how to walk again. I was in a wheelchair. Then I was walking with a cane. And I had to learn how to dress myself, how to eat, how to talk again, because I stutter now. You feel like you're a child in a man's body. I can't hear out of my left ear. I have a constant ringing. And my left eye is hurting because it stays dry. It doesn't -- there's no tears. And my face, the jaw is off-line. I had multiple problems with my fingers -- I can't bend my fingers. I'm constantly having neck problems -- I had a C5 (injury). I can't sleep all night. I can only sleep like three hours a day, and that's a good night for me.

"You know, it was actually easier for me if I would have died in Iraq. My neuropsychologist has told me my left side of my brain has been injured severely. So that is your ability to multi-task, to handle problems. So what I do, I watch game shows or look at crossword puzzles, and even though I'm in school or at the VA learning these processes, I do it on my own, to try to speed up my healing process. I'm trying to enhance my own ability because I'm a father. I have two kids. I have to show them that, hey, even though Daddy's not himself, you still have to work hard to achieve something."

I understand opposing the President on policy grounds. I cannot, however, get my head around people like Ferrell and company, who, in effect, tell wounded soldiers that they suffer not because President Bush thought the mission important for national security, not because the President considered Iraq a "grave and gathering danger."

No, they endure their daily ordeal because Darth Cheney and his minion Bush lied -- sending over 4,000 valiant men and women to their graves, with over 30,000 incurring wounds, in order to make their rich friends richer still.

Bush Hatred: The Sequel

By Mark Goldblatt

Published 8/7/2008 12:07:44 AM

With the prospect of a decent outcome in Iraq — perhaps even the first liberal democracy in the Muslim world — looming ever more likely, Bush-haters have lately begun to argue that the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush must be considered a moral abomination regardless because the conduct of the war on terror has undermined America’s core principles. To spearhead this new talking point comes a spate of recent books with especially ominous titles: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer; Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice by Eric Lichtblau; Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values by Phillipe Sands; and, silliest of all, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugiolsi.

The arguments contained in these books tend to proceed along one of two related lines: The first claims that the invasion of Iraq was “immoral” and/or “illegal” because Iraq had no hand in the attacks of September 11th 2001 and posed no immediate risk to the United States. The second claims that President Bush seized upon the public fear of another terrorist attack in order to quash the civil rights of Americans and authorize the widespread use of torture on American-held prisoners. In either case, the arguments conclude, Bush has sullied America’s good name both at home and abroad and is therefore a disgrace to the office of the presidency.

To counter the hysteria of such charges, historical context is necessary.

Recent history first: The idea that Saddam Hussein’s regime was no threat to America because, as it turned out, Iraq had no vast stockpiles of WMDs is just false. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Bush knew — contrary to the overwhelming consensus of foreign and domestic intelligence services — that Iraq possessed only minuscule supplies of chemical agents left over from the 1980s and 1990s. Could there be any doubt that Saddam, who was doling out $25,000 grants to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, was willing to support international terrorism? How much nerve gas, handed off to jihadis, constitutes an immediate danger?

And what about money as a WMD? How many truck bombs would a suitcase of Saddam’s cash put on the road? In its sealed indictment of Osama bin Laden in 1998, the Clinton Justice Department had mentioned a possible cooperation agreement between al Qaeda and Iraq. The charge was later dropped for lack of corroborating evidence — but Bush was no doubt aware of the initial indictment. Was it really unthinkable, in 2002, that Saddam would channel funds to Osama’s organization?

If the notion that Saddam posed no threat to America is false, the notion that Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was illegal is downright ludicrous. The cease-fire agreement Saddam signed in 1991 to remain in power after the American-led coalition forces had routed his military stipulated that Iraq must 1) provide full disclosure of all long range missiles and WMDs; 2) allow United Nations weapons inspectors full and free access to verify Iraq’s disarmament; and 3) cease all support of terrorism.

Since Saddam never lived up to these conditions — hence, the 17 unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding he comply — the U.S. simply invoked its right, as the principal aggrieved party to the 1991 cease fire, to resume hostilities and oust Saddam.

So much for international legalities.

DOMESTIC LEGALITIES are another story, of course, and Bush-haters insist that he’s run roughshod over the Constitution. But here, too, historical context is critical. Nothing that Bush is even alleged to have done comes close to matching Abraham Lincoln’s decision to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War or Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to relocate and imprison 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War Two — two conflicts not often said to have undermined America’s ideals. To be sure, Bush has invoked his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief during wartime to expand the government’s surveillance practices. Whether he’s gone too far, or whether the “war on terror” should be construed as a proper war, is debatable. But given the scope of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, and given the uncertainty of how to defend a free nation against a fanatical enemy who operates outside the norms of war and whose moral compass would make a scorpion blush, the measures Bush has taken so far, even those which push the envelope of constitutionality, are far from indefensible.

Even worse than the Bush Administration’s record on civil rights, according to the new wave of Bush-haters, is its record on human rights — specifically, it supposed authorization of torture on detainees held by the United States military. This is an explosive charge since torture would indeed run counter to core American values. Not that it would be unprecedented. Again, Lincoln’s conduct of the Civil War included the horrors of Camp Douglas, Chicago, where rebel prisoners were treated in ways that would make the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib look like a weekend at Club Med. As for FDR, that patron saint of leftist good intentions, we need probe no farther than the living memory of American soldiers who fought in the Pacific Theater of Operations to discover battlefield indecencies during his tenure as commander-in-chief — including, for example, the widespread killing of Japanese soldiers attempting to surrender and the casual dismemberment of Japanese war dead. In other words, both Lincoln and Roosevelt oversaw worse — far worse — human rights abuses than anything occurring on Bush’s watch.

Bush has contended, controversially but not illogically, that Geneva Convention protections don’t apply to captured terrorists who fail to meet Geneva’s own definition of “prisoners of war” — thus, opening the door to harsher treatment of detainees. But he also expressly stated in a now-declassified February 7, 2002 memo to his cabinet and Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Of course, our values as a Nation...call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment.”

Bush-haters, of course, claim that he never really meant that detainees should be treated humanely...because, of course, they know what Bush was really thinking. They cite the fact that there was an ongoing debate within the Bush administration about whether the definition of torture had, in recent decades, become too broad. Moral outrage! they cry. They never bother to ask whether the debate itself was reasonable. So let’s pose the question now: Does it make sense to use a single classification — “torture” — to describe crucifying a detainee, waterboarding him, and shining a pen light in his eyes for several minutes? Do all three practices rate the same blanket condemnation?

Moreover, doesn’t that pesky initial memo, in which Bush insisted that all detainees be treated humanely, indicate that serious people within the Administration were wrestling with serious moral issues, attempting to balance a concern for basic human rights with their constitutional obligation to safeguard the security of the American people?

Bush-haters shrug off such ambiguities. Their narrative, which has the current administration populated by mustache-twisting disciples of the Marquis de Sade, does not allow for ambiguities.

HERE’S THE TRUTH they cannot grasp: Like every war before it, the war on terror (or, to call it what it is, the war against totalitarian Islam) is a nasty, brutish endeavor. It is fraught with obscene excesses and squalid idiocies because, like every war before it, it looses the primordial evils of tribalism and bloodlust to which the human race, even at its current stage of evolution, remains heir. No technological advantage can render war antiseptic. No moral high ground can render it glorious. War is always wrong. Which is why its only justification is the conviction that by going to war you’re avoiding an even greater wrong down the road.

President Bush felt that conviction, and he acted on it.

If Iraq stabilizes anytime soon, and provides a liberal democratic exemplar that inspires the Muslim Middle East out of the Dark Age in which it has wallowed the last millennium, Bush will eventually be ranked with Lincoln and Roosevelt among our greatest presidents — for the very reason that he championed American values.

Bush-haters, in turn, will join the long ranks of history’s laughingstocks.

Yes people died when the war was drug out because of liberals on the ground here who thought we were being too harsh and made a big deal about juvenile treatment in Abu Graibe prison.
I’d like to see how many insurgents were inspired to plant IEDs because of the liberal press. How many soldiers have committed suicide because of the constant phony messages about
the War they are fighting suggesting that the President lied about it when it is clear he did no such thing. Those who are lying are in the media on largely on the left. They right now are fairly quiet that Iraq is stabilizing, oil contracts are being handed out, and Al-qeada has been torn to bits in sand trap we know as Iraq. They have indeed been so busy they’ve not managed another attack on US soil. Facts are made to be ignored by a press and a Democrat party that believes it is possible that President Bush knew about the attacks and possibly had something to do with them. Yes that is the domain of kooks and nuts but 60% of Democrats polled by Rasmussen found that to be a possibility.

These people are evil and have been content to sit by and watch millions die at the hands of tyrants when it wasn’t their cause de jour. They are not patriots who merely disagree. They are of the same stripe as Senator Ted Kennedy who led the effort to cut off funding for South Vietnam which had survived nearly 3 years after the bulk of US troops left. After that funding was cut the North Attacked and the rest of the story is history and the whole of the Asian subcontinent was bloodied forever as the red armies swept millions to their deaths. Not a tear was shed by the hippies for those they doomed. They tried the same tactic again in Iraq and they have failed horribly so much so that now the surplus oil money in Iraq is being looked at as a target for the Democrats. I’d ask them now do they still think Iraq is in a civil war?

Even now they have shifted positions and are trying to claim toughness in Afghanistan. How many times will they shift? Maybe Murtha will again suggest we send our troops to Okinawa? To his credit he now says the surge is a success but then again that goes without saying at least the media has trouble saying it. John McCain, the President, and all the GOP should be saying it.

The liberal Democrats were wrong on the surge, they are
wrong on energy policy, they are wrong on their vision for an American socialist state.

Good piece.

Some things have got flushed down the memory hole:

During the invasion the embeds reported a chemical plant discovered; the plant manager was an Iraqi general, the plant was surrounded by guard towers, and it wasn’t on the inspector’s list, its existence wasn’t public.

The product was “nerve agent”.

A few days later, it was reported that no, it wasn’t nerve agent at all, it was agricultural pesticide.

Then they found barrels of nerve agent at military ammo dumps, and then again a couple of days later they report that, no, it was agricultural pesticide. This happened about three times, on one occasion the reporters themselves got sick.

Now, here is the catch. If you spread it on Iranians, it is nerve agent. If you dilute it and spread it on fields, its agricultural pesticide. The Iraqi troops used to call their nerve agent “bug killer” and yes, thats exactly what it was.

But it was illegal, and right in front of me they re-defined it out of existence. I can’t help but remember this whenever they repeat the mantra that no WMD were ever found. They were found; they were re-defined and they vanished.

Next issue:

Saddam’s support for Bin Ladin. There are many many connections between Saddam and Bin Ladin; but we have agreed to re-define them out of existence and so, presto, suddenly there are none.

But Al Qaeda was born when Bin Ladin and Islamic Jihad joined forces. He surrounded himself with Islamic Jihad, and his number two was the head of Islamic Jihad. And here’s the catch; Islamic Jihad was on Saddam’s payroll. Which means, in essence, Bin Ladin was recruited by Saddam’s men right from day one if you want to think about it. Or you can “not” think about it, and repeat along with the others that there is no connection between Saddam and Bin Ladin. Why not.

Sometimes I hate having a long memory.

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