1). It was NOT the main reason for going to war ...
We have
always been at war with Eastasia.
Here's
the text of Powell's speech to the U.N, the speech that he
later described as a painful blot on his record. Reading it over, what would you say was the
main reason he gives for going to war, if not WMDs?
2). It was NOT a deliberate lie, but simply a mistake. Why would anybody claim Saddam had WMDs when they knew they didn't, when it is obvious that in that case they'd be greatly embarrased by not finding them later on?
'Cos by that time they'd had the war they wanted. Being "embarrassed" might seem a small price to pay, especially as this only applies to people with a sense of shame.
Colin Powell was embarrassed, but I can't think of another senior official who's betrayed the least embarrassment. Perhaps you can: if so, feel free to quote them.
But yes, it might have been a combination of wishful thinking and drooling idiocy, or "woo" as we call it round here. I don't see how that makes it OK.
Or take the "mission accomplished" sign:
1). It wasn't put up by Bush or his people, but by the carrier's crew, to emphasize THEIR SPECIFIC MISSION was accomplished (as they came back to port after making it).
As
the White House has admitted, the banner was made, and hung in that particular position, by White House staff:
Not long afterwards, the White House had to amend its account. The soldiers hadn't put up the sign; the White House had done the hoisting. It had also produced the banner — contrary to what senior White House officials had said for months. In the end, the White House conceded on those details, but declared them mere quibbles. The point was, they said, that the whole thing had been done at the request of the crewmembers. Even that explanation didn't sit well with some long-time Bush aides. "They (the White House) put up banners at every event that look just like that and we're supposed to believe that at this one it was the Navy that requested one?" asked a senior administration official. Others remember staffers boasting about how the president had been specifically positioned during his speech so that the banner would be captured in footage of his speech.
And even if you wish to deny what the White House has admitted, are you trying to claim that Bush standing slap-bang in front of it was
not an intentional photo-op?
Of all the things that he could have stood in front of, he
just happened to stand in front of that?
Damn, such terrible bad luck.
2). Bush's own speech on that very same carrier empasized the Iraq mission was NOT accomplished yet.
Let's hear from Bush, shall we?
Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
And yet these two claims are not merely rants on the fringes of the left -- of the "Obama is a Muslim" or "Obama not American" sort rants on the fringers of the right. These are practically dogma with half of the democrats.
Let's be frank, they are "practically dogma" with anyone whose view of reality is not obscured by Bush's ass.
