--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Sort of like I did not have sex with that woman. The > administration had very good evidence that this > story was bogus; from the horse's mouth. the guy who > did the report. So the key is not whether you can > hide behind the fact that the british thought it was > true. That is just playing with words. This was a > very important accusation. They knew or should have > known it was not true (based on their own > investigation). Either they ignored it or created a > climate where the CIA would downplay it. Most benign > explanation. Tbey made an honest mistake. But wait, > if I make the honest mistake of going the wrong way > on a superhighway and cause a major accident I am > not excused from responsibility by the fact that I > had no malicious intent. I am held accountable. And > the more important the mistake the more accountable > I am held.
No, they did _not_ know it was not true. In fact, it was almost certainly true. The British government _still_ believes that it was true. The Iraqis may (or may not) have been seeking Uranium in Niger. There is more to Africa than Niger. Bush never claimed that they were seeking anything in Niger. He claimed that the British told him they were seeking something in Africa. _The only information that we have_ as to the credibility of the accusation - the British government's stated position - hold that the accusation is true. End of story. You've just been swindled by people who hate George Bush more than Saddam Hussein, Bob. > > >conservatives talk about media bias. � > Many analysts think the media has given bush a very > free ride in the coverage of this war. Watching BBC > versus CNN or heaven forbid FOX was like watching > two different events. It is time for conservatives > to stop this BS of media bias. Bush controls the > media not the other way around. That's true, because the BBC hates Israel and the United States. The argument that watching the BBC means the media is not biased is about equal to saying that the fact that Al Jazeera claimed we were mass murdering Iraqi civilians means that the BBC must have been telling the truth. The BBC - we now know - was _faking_ stories to make Tony Blair look bad. What does that tell you? > Wait; we are at war because this administration > unilaterally committed the country to this course of > action. Bob, US + UK + Australia + Poland + several other countries <> unilateral. > We were told it was necessary because of > WMD. Now we find out that some of the proof for > these weapons, the rationale for the war was false > and that the government either knew or should have > known it to be false. How is it unpatriotic to > question this? We are putting no one at risk by > doing this analysis. Do you really think that more > soldiers are dying because of this? Sadam's > loyalists and/or their terrorist allies would have > come up with another excuse to fan resentment > against that. But this was the risk going in. If we > did not secure the peace with minimal loss, get > Sadamm and restore order quickly we were going to > have these problems. So we did what we did quickly > but have done poorly on the catching Sadamm and > restoring order. Those who were against the war for > tactical (not moral reasons) were concerned about > these problems and those concerns have turned out to > be true. Actually, they didn't. There were lots of lies told about Iraq. We were told we would take tens of thousands of casualties. We were told that we woudl kill hundreds of thousands of civilians. We were told that the people of Iraq would fight against us. We were told that Saddam was not hated in Iraq. Lots of lies. Of course, Bob, they were all on your side of the political fence, but I won't hold that against you. Those concerns have turned out to be the beliefs of the abysmally ignorant. Attacks on American forces in Germany after the Second World War continued until 1947. It has now been about, oh, three months since Saddam was overthrown. In that time we have been, on average, losing one person every three days. I mourn for every person lost. I have friends in the war zone - can you say the same? But that isn't exactly a catastrophe. If Bush had really been lying, then it would not at all be unpatriotic to criticize him. Making up false accusations for pure partisan advantage - and there is no other reasonable explanation for what is happening - is contemptible. The Democratic Party leadership has gone so collectively insane that they would rather investigate this than, say, the failures of the Homeland Security Department (real, although overstated) or the intelligence problems that led to 9/11, or Saudi support of terrorists, or anything that might actually be useful and in the national interest. They are fundamentally unserious. This is, of course, why Bush is going to win in a walk in 2004, but I would _hope_ that you would at least not fall for such mendacious behavior. We have, apart from which, found a great deal of evidence. Plans for nuclear weapons and centrifuges buried in the front lawn of a major Iraqi scientist, for example. They weren't allowed to have those. Did you see reports of that in the mass media? I bet not, because the New York Times carefully glossed over that particular story. All by itself that should have ended this little discussion. > > Shame on everyone >involved. �Shame on the > Adminstration for not>defending itself better, and > even more on those who > >slander it for their own partisan advantage or > sheer malice. > > > It can't defend itself better. To claim your narrow > version of truth (I didn't say A was true, I said > the British said A was true) is a transparent > attempt to shift blame. The speech in which Bush > made this claim was important. The claim was > important. They put it in the speech to prove that > we were in danger. If they just had hear say > evidence or more accurately they had reason to > believe that the evidence was false it should not > have been in the speech. Hear say evidence is how the intelligence world works. We now know, furthermore, that the British got this intelligence from the French, and could not share details (probably because the French refused them permission). We have the National Intelligence Estimate which held that the Iraqis were doing _exactly what Bush said they were doing_. I notice that you've conveniently ignored that point, Bob. The White House could have defended itself much better. What they _should_ have said was that the claim was true, that to the best of their knowledge it was also accurate, and that the people who were falsely impugning the credibility in the government in wartime were cheerfully sacrificing American interests for their own partisan benefit. What does _that_ say about the character of the Democratic party leadership? ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
