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6/13/2003 05:57:00 PM | Timothy Conservative Apologists for Bush Administration 'Lies' (er.. misleading untruths) Stefan Beck in comments says: If Bush was really the "liar" you make him out to be, we'd probably be planting WMD to "discover." But that hasn't happened, not even in the face of harsh criticism; Bush is clearly more honest than you give him credit for being.I love this: Bush must be honest because he doesn't actually go so far as to plant the weapons. My god, I'd love to use that defense anytime I was accused of doing something wrong. (Bush: 'I didn't lie. You know that because I didn't try to cover up my lie!' What Standards!). But let's not forget that the U.S. government used documents from Nigeria purporting to be about uranium going into Iraq when it was later clearly shown those documents were obvious forgeries. And Britain plagerized a student's paper and presented it as the work of British intelligence. So if Beck is right to assume that a person who steps down the path of moral dishonesty will go even further, I suppose I'll have to assume the Bushies lied more than I know. The Bushies likely sincerely believed they would find weapons of mass destruction. Most people, including myself, thought Saddam was probably lying about his possession of WMD. I think the Bushies lied about knowing this for certain and having proof of what they claimed. Or maybe they were sincere, but delusional, in which case we should be wary of trusting them. Unlike those democratic quotes, the Bushies were specific about the types and size and locations of weapons. And we have heard complaints from the CIA that the intelligence was politicized to make Saddam look like more of a threat. If government officials in the administration weren't lying, we need an accounting of how they got it so wrong. If you go to war expecting to be proved right after the fact, you need to accountable if the facts turn out not to be the same as you hoped. I personally don't care if we use the word 'lie,' but it seems a whiney protest from those who were so after Clinton to say "I lied" rather than "I misled." In any case, Bush stated his case to the world based on U.S. credibility. Whether the case the U.S. presented seems wrong because of intentional lies or screw ups, you can't trust the Bush administration by relying solely on their word. The rationale for war keeps changing and Bush has wrongly stated (lied?) that we have found the weapons of mass destruction his administration spoke of before the war. Another alternative is that the weapons (or at least some of them) were there, but Saddam distributed them, or groups took them in the confusion. Ryan Samuels in his comments on a post below seems to advance this line: "The question is not whether the Americans lied, but if these weapons have been dispersed." Great, we went to war to stop the dispersal of the weapons to terrorists, and possibly ended up causing that instead. Brilliant move, Bush. Again, if they really knew the WMD were there, why isn't everyone worried as heck where they are now!? As I said, I did not expect to be having this debate. The main people who I personally knew who were saying, how do we know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction were members of the International Socialist Organization at Columbia. Almost everyone thought that based on Saddam's history, he was hiding something. This is one of the problems of a 'pre-emptive' war without proof of a threat; expectation of 'ex-post justification' don't always pan out. perma link |
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