Posted on 11/19/2005 5:51:30 PM PST by neverdem
It is said that a big lie can work if it is repeated often enough. For weeks, leading Democrats have been hammering away at the Big Lie that George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Starting on Veterans Day, Bush, Dick Cheney, and others in the administration embarked on a "pushback," arguing that Bush--and many leading Democrats, including some now part of the Big Lie campaign--accurately characterized the intelligence at the time.
Bush, Cheney, and the administration have the truth on their side. Exhaustive and authoritative examinations of the prewar intelligence, by the bipartisan report of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004, by the Silberman-Robb commission in 2005, and by the British commission headed by Lord Butler, have established that U.S. intelligence agencies, and the intelligence organizations of leading countries like Britain, France, and Germany, believed that Saddam Hussein's regime was in possession of or developing weapons of mass destruction--chemical and biological weapons, which the regime had used before, and nuclear weapons, which it was working on in the 1980s.
To the charges that Bush "cherry-picked" intelligence, the commission cochaired by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb found that the intelligence available to Bush but not to Congress was even more alarming than the intelligence Congress had. The Silberman-Robb panel also concluded, after a detailed investigation, that in no instance did Bush administration authorities pressure intelligence officials to alter their findings. Much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. But Bush didn't lie about it. Some Bush supporters argue that the pushback now is a mistake, because it prevents the administration from focusing on events going forward. But the damage to Bush's credibility is real, and he needs to repair it to speak credibly about the future. At the same time, we must remember that the United States and our allies did not go to war solely because of weapons of mass destruction. There were other reasons, which Bush articulated at the time and which have been vindicated by events.
One of them was to remove from power one of the most brutal regimes on Earth. Mainstream media have enjoyed focusing on isolated prison abuses by U.S. forces and, in the past week, by Iraqis. (Have the media ever focused so closely on prison conditions in our past wars?) But these abuses are nothing compared with what the Saddam Hussein regime did every day. Rape rooms, prisoners fed into shredders, hundreds of mass graves: Do we really want to forget that the liberation of Iraq has vastly improved the lives of millions of people there?
Results. Another goal was to advance freedom and democracy in the Middle East--not just to help the people there but to change the mind-set of the region that produced the attacks of September 11. Before 2003, the dictators and authoritarian rulers of the region focused their peoples' inevitable discontent on the United States and Israel. Now the progress toward democracy in Iraq is leading Middle Easterners to concentrate on the question of how to build decent governments and decent societies. We can see the results--the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the first seriously contested elections in Egypt, Libya's giving up WMD s, the Jordanian protests against Abu Musab Zarqawi's recent suicide attacks, and even a bit of reform in Saudi Arabia. In Syria, the Washington Post' s David Ignatius reports, "People talk politics here with a passion I haven't heard since the 1980s in Eastern Europe. They're writing manifestos, dreaming of new political parties, trying to rehabilitate old ones from the 1950s."
Almost surely, none of this would have happened without the liberation of Iraq. And there democracy goes forward: Seventy-eight percent voted for the Constitution last month, and democratic parties are contesting the elections to be held next month. Against this backdrop, mainstream media headlined the call for U.S. withdrawal by Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who has long been skeptical of the war in Iraq. The propagators of the Big Lie against President Bush are trying to delegitimize not only him but also all the progress that has been made as a result of Iraq, progress both toward freedom for Middle Easterners and toward a Middle East that will no longer threaten the United States.
Bump
Powerful and from very respected Michael Barone, not a talking head.
-PJ
But now the Dems "cherrypick" information,(with the benefit of hindsight), and ignore opposing known facts.
Isn't this what they said Bush did?
No one can believe this will ever see the light of day on the MSM
GREAT article, thanks for posting it.
The shame is that Bush and Cheney had to speak up for themselves. Where are our Republican senators and Congresscritters?
Now they have to keep it up keep ramming their lies down their throats.
.
NEVER FORGET
Praise GOD that...
President BUSH has promised...
FREEDOM's return to:
Communist Vietnam
Communist North Korea
Communist Cuba
..as well as..
FREEDOM's arrival to:
All the countires of the Middle East
...during a BUSH Presidency...
...as America's own best self protection against future terrorist attacks here at home.
Last friday, at the Vietnam Wall on Veterans Day, I was blessed to personally thank Chariman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. PETER PACE for his protecting us in a new time of war.
The good General in turn thanked me back for "Leading the Way" as a Battle of IA DRANG Veteran 40 years ago, exactly.
We live in very extraordinary times now in this new Century, with extraordinary risks ..don't we..?
Those who do not pay attention to this fact do not serve our blessed country very well.
Office holder or not.
For what happened in Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon 30 years ago, exactly...
...could happen here:
Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education Camp
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer
-HHC, 1/7th Cavalry 1965-66
-IA DRANG S-1 Personnel Clerk
-Lt. Col. HAL G. MOORE Radioman/Driver/Orderly/Chaplain Assistant in Vietnam
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
(Photos)
NEVER FORGET
.
bttt amazing!
I don't buy hard copies of newspapers or magazines. I can't say for sure. My impression is that U.S.News & World Report prints hard copies of his OpEd column.
Yes!
-PJ
BTTT
Thanks for the links.
Thanks Nev. Great Article, it now has been added to my personal hard drive of Freeper Article Archives.
mark
You forget that laws, common sense, rational thought, and truth do not seem to apply to the left.
I imagine most have seen that Henry Kissinger's proteges have dominated foreign policy. So, everyone is shocked and amazed at the new vision of Bush/Rice. It makes them mad, too, because it is so different. The nerve, after all.
It must just be online, because I just looked in my latest issue of USN&WR (Nov. 21, 2005) and there is no article, only a link for their online version of "Barone Blog".
http://www.usnews.com/baroneblog
The link from my last post doesn't take you to the article mentioned in the title, but this one should.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051128/28barone.htm
I love Barone...and I know you do too..
No "Bump" has ever been more worthy! Thank you, Mr. Barone and thanks to you, neverdem for sharing this with us. Excellent post, excellent.
U.S. News and World Report is about as MSM as they get. Often referenced as a "leftist rag" in some circles. Copies are available in print at most any newspaper/magazine outlet.
Thanks for the ping . . . Barone's one of the best!!
I figured out that I haven't gotten the 11/28/05 issue yet, so forget what I commented on in my earlier posts. Mea culpa.
I wonder if it isn't time for GWB to go to Congress and speak in *prime time* to a national audience and lay out his whole case. I think it would be smart move.
Yes, Michael Barone is in the print edition every week.
Maybe call a special session during the break to lay out the case, speak to the nation, and force a vote recognizing the results of the various committees that have looked into the matter, and a resolution to stay the course.
It's an odd mix of balanced, liberal-leaning and conservative. John Leo writes every week about the stupidities of political correctness. Michael Barone has a weekly conservative column. But the lead articles and cover photos are often left-sensationalist. The readers and letters to the editor usually complain loudly when it goes too far in either direction. The publisher, Mortimer Zuckerman, is an issues guy. He supports Bush on many issues and not on others. As a long-time subscriber, I find it very frustrating, and wish it would be more consistent in reporting without slanting either way.
The big lie if accepted and not refuted, enters the history books as truth. There is a Brit term for a false historical account: a "Tony Pandy" (sp?)
I think he will, in due time, unless events and new revelations outpace him. I am personally not very satisfied with the "relied on flawed, but universally believed intelligence" defense. Show the WND really did, and do, exist!
To belive otherwise is to believe, not only that every intelligence service of every country, plus the UN, that investigated the matter was dead wrong -- one must also believe, preposterously, that old Saddam himself was fooled into thinking he had them. Doesn't take a genius to say, "Gosh, maybe he had them and got rid of them in the 6 months interval when he knew we were going to invade." No need for a convoluted story about unending intelligence screw ups and how Saddam didn't have a real grip on his military research programs. Yeah, sure. Tell me another whopper, fat Ted. Or have another Whopper, along with that gin and tonic. (Or do the Kennedeys drink only whiskey? I forget.)
Bill Gertz: Photos point to removal of weapons [Iraqi Arms Update 10/29/04]
U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained satellite photographs of truck convoys that were at several weapons sites in Iraq in the weeks before U.S. military operations were launched, defense officials said yesterday. The photographs indicate that Iraq was moving arms and equipment from its known weapons sites, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. According to one official, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, known as NGA, "documented the movement of long convoys of trucks from various areas around Baghdad to the Syrian border."
--snip--
The photographs bolster the claims of Pentagon official John A. Shaw, who told The Washington Times on Wednesday that recent intelligence reports indicate Russian special forces units took part in a sophisticated dispersal operation from January 2003 to March 2003 to move key weapons out of Iraq.
Date line for article is 11-28, I would think print edition.
Great article.
dittos
bookmark
I am beginning to believe that the Dems are afraid that if we are successful in Iraq it will boost the Republicans in the coming elections, and they are desperate to sabotage us in Iraq merely to further their own election chances.
henh... ya think? Donks selling out America for personal political gains? nahhhh...
bttt
Two votes in the House were quite important.
Furious Dems Didn't Think GOP Would Take Murtha at His Word
House passes $49.9 billion in spending cuts
Republicans in House Pass $50 Billion in Budget Cuts WaPo's version, what else is new?
This is a great article by Barone. However, I wish these things would be articulated to the press and the public by the administration. They seem to have let partisan hacks obscure the huge successes we have had in the WOT. In short we need a much better PR dept.
Hillary camps are not beyond the beast.
Not True! He got it half right. They have no big problem with progress toward freedom for the ME. The ONLY thing they are trying to do is delegitimize President Bush, to keep history from labeling him a "great" President. It is only because of this single goal that they need to delegitimize progress toward freedom for the ME.
This guy comes very close to hitting the nail on the head.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1525527/posts
The big lie is that Bush Lied.
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