This is an 'old' issue, but we have many here who have not learned a lesson.
This is new information insofar as the interview with Curveball.
Here's the video to watch:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7359532n
I remember, on another political message board but every board I saw was the same thing:
Liberals raising doubts about WMD, demanding the inspectors be allowed to finish, while right-wingers backed war, and said they had few or no doubts about WMD.
Righties said a lot of things about how they would never trust Bush again if it turned out he was wrong - statements mostly forgotten when he was.
It was one of those 'big tests' of who was right, like the Clinton tax increases for which EVERY right-wing leader predicted economic doom if passed; they were wrong again.
We know the basics, that Powell said there was 'solid' intelligence analysis proving the weapons, etc.
We know the spin, 'if we were fooled, so was every intelligence agency in the world with us'.
But the basic facts are appalling and the spin doesn't work.
The US had - and it lied about this - an agenda for war, while saying it wanted to avoid war and it was a 'last resort'.
And so it did not act honestly and lied to the American people.
It's not the first time this has happened. Pretty much every war, had lies, really. But should we accept any of them?
Administrations might sometimes think they're doing 'the best thing for the country' by misleading the public on war. Even if they don't - like LBJ having doubts about Vietnam as he 'gave' the war to the Republicans to get their support for his domestic programs - clearly they don't think it's a good idea to say anything negative about the war publicly. 'I'm taking us to war, but I have big misgivings' doesn't work well.
But this was a whopper for our history, really, a basic recklessness in a desire to use a pretense about the whole justification for the war.
Practically the entire justification for the war was based on this one Iraqi refugee's now-admitted lies - that were told under extreme duress (not torture, but in German custody competing with many other Iraqi refugees for the right to stay when only 1 in 25 were given a spot and offering these lies could get him a spot), the US *never talked to him* and not even know his name, were warned by German intelligence he was not reliable, yet for the desire to have war justification, accepted his lies.
Where is the accountability for this intentional deception - they may not have known for a FACT these were lies, but they knew they had been able to find no other evidence after much searching, and intentionally were deceptive about the nature of the information such as how reliable it was and how they had 'stove-piped' it.
There has been no accountability, really, and that's a crime.
The American people are condoning with inaction the leaders lying to them. There's blame for the Democrats in doing this - but blame for the American people in that being in the political interest of the Democrats to do so, because the public would fall for the Republicans exploiting any investigation.
The 60 Minutes piece is very informative, but it downplayed some of the facts mentioned above, unfortunately, an issue I mailed them about.
Now, the issue is spin - do the perpetrators get away with 'hey, it was an honest mistake, let's forget it'?
You can *support the war* and still oppose the deception of the public by leaders.
This is new information insofar as the interview with Curveball.
Here's the video to watch:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7359532n
I remember, on another political message board but every board I saw was the same thing:
Liberals raising doubts about WMD, demanding the inspectors be allowed to finish, while right-wingers backed war, and said they had few or no doubts about WMD.
Righties said a lot of things about how they would never trust Bush again if it turned out he was wrong - statements mostly forgotten when he was.
It was one of those 'big tests' of who was right, like the Clinton tax increases for which EVERY right-wing leader predicted economic doom if passed; they were wrong again.
We know the basics, that Powell said there was 'solid' intelligence analysis proving the weapons, etc.
We know the spin, 'if we were fooled, so was every intelligence agency in the world with us'.
But the basic facts are appalling and the spin doesn't work.
The US had - and it lied about this - an agenda for war, while saying it wanted to avoid war and it was a 'last resort'.
And so it did not act honestly and lied to the American people.
It's not the first time this has happened. Pretty much every war, had lies, really. But should we accept any of them?
Administrations might sometimes think they're doing 'the best thing for the country' by misleading the public on war. Even if they don't - like LBJ having doubts about Vietnam as he 'gave' the war to the Republicans to get their support for his domestic programs - clearly they don't think it's a good idea to say anything negative about the war publicly. 'I'm taking us to war, but I have big misgivings' doesn't work well.
But this was a whopper for our history, really, a basic recklessness in a desire to use a pretense about the whole justification for the war.
Practically the entire justification for the war was based on this one Iraqi refugee's now-admitted lies - that were told under extreme duress (not torture, but in German custody competing with many other Iraqi refugees for the right to stay when only 1 in 25 were given a spot and offering these lies could get him a spot), the US *never talked to him* and not even know his name, were warned by German intelligence he was not reliable, yet for the desire to have war justification, accepted his lies.
Where is the accountability for this intentional deception - they may not have known for a FACT these were lies, but they knew they had been able to find no other evidence after much searching, and intentionally were deceptive about the nature of the information such as how reliable it was and how they had 'stove-piped' it.
There has been no accountability, really, and that's a crime.
The American people are condoning with inaction the leaders lying to them. There's blame for the Democrats in doing this - but blame for the American people in that being in the political interest of the Democrats to do so, because the public would fall for the Republicans exploiting any investigation.
The 60 Minutes piece is very informative, but it downplayed some of the facts mentioned above, unfortunately, an issue I mailed them about.
Now, the issue is spin - do the perpetrators get away with 'hey, it was an honest mistake, let's forget it'?
You can *support the war* and still oppose the deception of the public by leaders.
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