Posted on 08/28/2005 12:07:17 AM PDT by RadicalSon2
As the American people wise up about the war in Iraq, and the shifting rationale behind it, they aren't letting the press off the hook.
Good for them.
As President Bush led the nation into the invasion of Iraq, the evidence he cited as justification for the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime was too often echoed by news organizations that holstered the skepticism they customarily bring to their work. As a result, any doubts about the wisdom of the war focused on strategy rather than factual truth.
Hussein's purported possession of weapons of mass destruction was accepted as established fact. His alleged attempt to build nuclear bombs was reported without the qualifying statements it deserved. And members of the Bush administration were given greater credibility than those who remained skeptical, including United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.
The public now knows that. It says so in a new Gallup poll commissioned by the McCormick Tribune Foundation of Chicago.
Sixty-one percent of the poll's respondents said the press keeps them well informed on military and national security issues. That might not sound so bad, but 79 percent gave the same response to the same question in 1999.
More telling is that more than 60 percent of people criticized the news media and the government for failing to inform them adequately before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The problem wasn't that news organizations uniformly expressed support for an invasion -- some did and some did not -- but that they almost universally confirmed the factual basis for it. Since that factual basis has been found to have been untrue, some of the larger organizations responsible, notably including the New York Times, have publicly acknowledged their errors.
Many smaller organizations, however, served as an amen chorus for the drumbeat of news about how dangerous Iraq was. This page, for example, opposed the invasion itself, but spoke uncritically of Saddam Hussein's dangers, at least to his neighbors.
It turned out Hussein was a paper tiger, in more ways than one. His menace to the world existed only on paper -- and in the nation's newspapers.
Most Americans apparently have learned that lesson. Let's hope most of the news organizations responsible for it have. -- J.F.
Of course it had meaning in part because of constant struggle between patrician and plebeian leaders. And plebeians often got upper hand. But the successful plebeians were usually affluent so it would support your position.
Now, do you think that XX century European model where your income is not so important in getting to the political office (you get state election funds and after victory the salary sufficient to make living) is worse or not better?
Now, do you think that XX century European model where your income is not so important in getting to the political office (you get state election funds and after victory the salary sufficient to make living) is worse or not better?
I don't live under the European system, but my gut impression is that it is more efficient at producing politicians, functionaries and bureaucrats than at producing statesmen. Managers that "run the program", rather than leaders who innovate. Not that we produce many either...
Scotty has been beamed up. He's recently died.
Not in the vast quantities that he was killing his own people, but yes he was. The Soviets killed many Americans both directly in the espionage war, and indirectly in the various proxy wars. Not to mention the direct threat of nuclear attack at any time, directly analogous to the threat all Americans are under currently from terrorism.
Stalin was fighting us in Korea and areas around the world and he did threaten us with nukes but he didn’t do what Saddam did attack us directly by blowing up building and such in the US. It maybe a fine line but I think it is important point.
informing = enforcing
Saudis are not harboring terrorists. If we find a criminal they go after him. Saddam was told many times to round up known terrorists and he ignored us.
this has been bugging me, where did the KNOWN supplies go?
Unless the UN lied to us when they counted the known supplies to begin with, they are still missing.
No, they just fund the Wahabi mosques all over the world.
Untell that day comes we cann’t force other countries to change their ways.
Personally I would rather see corrective change within the Religion then making a religion illegal. It has been done before.
Who knows? The Hussein govt. claimed they destroyed the known stock of nerve gas following Gulf War I, but didn't document it or bother to follow any of the required inspection protocols. There have been a few binary chemical gas artillery rounds found with some of the gas (rounds they also weren't supposed to have had), but no large quantities. There was also a report out of Jordan of a foiled terrorist attack using poison gas. Allegedly, the terrorists were Syrian, but Syria has no reported manufacturing capability.
The amount missing and not Documented would show a HUGE corruption with in the government of Iraq at the time of the weapons turing up missing. To the point where in my opinion the government was about to fall anyway. Which is why Zarqawi said he was in Iraq, to take Iraq prior to 911.
I remember the Jordan attempted attack took around 10 truck loads of bio weapons. But that still doesn't account for huge quanities that are still missing.
More likely that Saddam's govt. had hidden the gas and just lied to the UN about destroying it. A large convoy of SOMETHING went into Syria on the eve of invasion. Interesting that Zarqawi's thugs ended up with poison gas from somewhere.
But, of course, there is no connection whatsoever between Al Queda and Saddam. Nope, nosiree, none whatsoever. Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore told me so.
"The authorities said a group of 10 suspects planned to pack the truck bombs with deadly cocktails of 71 lethal chemicals - including blistering agents, nerve gas and choking agents - and then simultaneously crash them into their targets. ...
The chemicals included sulfuric acid, a powerful blistering agent that can also be used to increase the strength of explosions. " Link
My mistake, for some reason I thought sarin was a bio weapon.
Bioweapons are usually considered to be weaponized diseases, like anthrax or smallpox, which can continue to kill thru contaigion. Sarin is a poison that kills by skin contact.
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