It's not amoung the top 20, but you may find an clue or answer here.
Posted on 05/06/2005 10:06:57 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
As the criminal, sinful war in Iraq enters its third year, the president is in Europe to heal the wounds between the United States and its former allies, on his own terms, of course. The White House propaganda mill hails it as another victory for the president and ignores the fact that most Europeans still consider the war dangerous folly and the president a dangerous fool.
One hears new rationalizations for the war on this side of the Atlantic. After the hearings on Secretary Rice, a Republican senator, with all the self-righteous anger that characterizes many such, proclaimed, "The Democrats just have to understand that the president really believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
This justification is not unlike the one heard frequently at the White House, "The president believed the intelligence agencies of the world."
Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?
It is also asserted that the election settled the matters of the war and the torture of prisoners. These are dead issues that no longer need be addressed.
But the president received only 51 percent of the vote and carried only one more state than the last time (picking up New Mexico and Iowa and losing New Hampshire). This is a validation of the war and of prisoner abuse? This is a mandate to do whatever he wants to do and whatever the leadership of the evangelical denominations want? A percentage point and a single state are a mandate for more war? Never before in American political history!
Finally, we are told that the Iraqi election confirms the Bush administration policy in Iraq. The president's supporters must be in deep trouble to reach so far for that one. All the election proves is that the Iraqis want to run their own country. It also raises the possibility that Shia clerics will deliver Iraq into the hands of the Iranians. Some kind of victory!
How do these kinds of arguments play in the precincts? The survey data suggest that war has become more unpopular. The majority of the American people now think it was a mistake, in a shift away from the 51 percent that endorsed it on Election Day. Admittedly this is only a small change in the population, from a majority to a minority. Nor do the changers earn grace for their new opinions. They still endorsed the war on Election Day and are still responsible for it.
How long can the administration get along with its policies of spinning big lies into truth -- as it has more recently done on Social Security?
Note the three most important Cabinet positions. Rice said that it was better to find the weapons of mass destruction than to see a mushroom cloud.
"Judge" Gonzales said the Geneva Convention was "quaint" and in effect legitimated the de facto policy of torture.
Rumsfeld repealed the "Powell Doctrine" -- only go to war when you have the massive force necessary to win decisively and quickly. Brilliant businessman that he is (like Robert McNamara of the Vietnam era), he thought he could win with 130,000 troops (unlike the at least 200,000 that the Army chief of staff insisted) and hence made the current "insurgency" inevitable.
The presence of these three towering giants in the administration certainly confirms that the president is confident that he is "right" on Iraq and that he has mandates from the American people and from God which confirm that he is "right."
Nothing, in other words, has changed in the last two years. The war is still the "right thing to do," it is still part of the "war against terrorism," it is still essential to keep Arabs from blowing up our skyscrapers.
You can still get away with the "big lie" as long as Karl Rove and his team of spinners keep providing persuasive rationalizations. The American public is still supine, uneasy about the war, but not willing yet to turn decisively against it. Will that still be the case next year when we "celebrate" the third anniversary of the war? Is the patience of the American people that long-suffering? Is there no outrage left in the country? How many people have to die before the public realizes that American foreign policy is a tissue of lies?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1395270/posts
...and the horse you rode in on, Greeley.
If they are "former allies" does that mean that they can now pay for their own defense?
What are the circluation numbers for the Chicago Sun-Times these days?
Hey Padre, go back to writing your cheap novels.
Exactly.
How the Church lets him write such tripe and run off at the mouth is beyond me.
BTW, I love the Cubs. Best place to watch baseball.
I was stuck in Skokie for a few years working and loved to skip out of work and take the L to the game. Even though I'm a Pittsburgh kind of guy, I could live in Chicago in a heart beat. There are no better people.
The war is over idiot.
I really wonder why the Chi-Trib would print such a sophomoric editorial.
Whatever else this loser is, a good writer, he aint.
How about one who believe what the previous President had believed? The previous President, who was roundly regarded as one of the smartest Presidents we have ever had. He believed and has stated so recently, that Iraq had WMD. Heck, he made it a national policy to get rid of Saddam..
I just LOVE the uninformed. After the 1st Gulf War,and the Articles of Surrender that was signed, had Saddam broken just ONE of them, the war could legally begin again as if it never stopped.
He broke, ultimately, 18 resolution. But, why let facvt get in the way of a liberal rant, hmm?
Chi-Trib = Chi-SunTimes. Same diff.
I love it that our effort in Iraq has made this guy's life miserable.
How long can the MSM pine for their beloved Saddam?
This idiot greeley wants us to think he knew everything that the President did.
I am so tired of hearing this nonsense.
If the terrorists had flown those planes into a financial landmark in Germany or England I wonder what the response would have been like and how long the eurocrats would have stood there looking at the US waiting for us to help them.
The EU hates America for its success and idiots like Greeley gladly sing their song.
What an obnoxious sh-t. He must go to bed every night hoping the Iraq situation gets worse. An ungenerous creep.
The admistration's silence on Iraq is frustrating. We found artillery shells with mustard gas, and one with sarin. Doesn't that suggest that at one time Saddam did posess stockpiles of WMD's?
But let's look at what we did find. Enough uranium to build a couple of dirty bombs. I beleve enriched weapons grade uranium was also found. The British confirmed last July that Saddam was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger. Well the the U.N. for food fiasco, the Dilfer report, shows the world that Saddam was attempting to buy off sanctions. Once the sanctions were lifted he would be in postion to restart his WMD, nuclear, programs. He'd have a nuke today if we didn't take him out.
Saddam also had more than small little contacts with Al-Qaeda. He gave them safe harbor trained them in the use of chemical weapons at Salman Pak, If Saddam was a man of peace and inner beauty why the hell, as a sign of friendship, din't he hand over Al-Zarqarwi and the other Al-Qaeda thugs that were in Iraq before the war?
Putin said Russia had intell that Saddam was planning future attacks against us. Well, we certainly put a stop to that nonsense.
Andrew Greeley....wasn't he a featured nutter on 'Liberal Lunatic' here on FR?
It's not amoung the top 20, but you may find an clue or answer here.
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