25-01-2004 06:32									#61
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov As for Bush, considering Tenet personally intervened in October 2002 to stop Bush from making any references to the Nigerian yellow cake claim in a speech in Cincinatti, and at that time the NIE had concluded that the claims of the material was "highly dubious," I'd say it's inclusion in the SotU address was a calculated lie, undoubtedly. The CIA had a conniption fit when they got the first draft of the speech over those claims. But since Bush was hell-bent on saying, it, they could only get the compromise that the intelligence be pinned on the British instead of the U.S. agency. When Bush said "British Intelligence has learned..." he was practicing deliberate deceit, because he and his staff, and the CIA, knew it had been first a CIA information-gathering mission (and that the British were using CIA info), and they knew the claims were unfounded. Did Bush want to believe the reports? Sure, but that doesn't excuse him for using what was known to be unfounded claims in his SotU address to frighten Americans into supporting a war he had been wanting since before he took office. Frankly, to make Bush's statements "true," you'd have to do the kind of semantical hair-splitting that made Clinton's statements about the word "is" true.

At the time of the SOTU speech, was it the position of the CIA that the Niger reports were 1) unconfirmed; or 2) confirmed to be not true?

	25-01-2004 06:39									#62
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Sen. Clinton, Clark and Kerry were not privvy to the intelligence from the CIA about the Niger claims, now were they? They believed there were weapons, but they didn't lie about a specific piece of intelligence in a State of the Union address, did they? They believed Bush, which was their mistake, as Clark and Kerry said since. Who would think the POTUS would tell them such a bald-faced fib about a matter of national security on national TV?

Senator Clinton cited the position of the government under her husband as a reason for supporting the IWR.

The Senators and Representative on the Intelligence committees of Congress did have access to the raw data. All of them that did have access affirmed to their colleagues that Saddam did have WMD.

The Niger reports were not material to the IWR. They were icing on the cake.

No one voting for the IWR had to rely on Bush for any intelligence information. They had direct access themselves. So it is a simply falsehood to say that the Senate and the House were misled into voting for the IWR because of Bush's lies.

	25-01-2004 06:41									#63
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quote: Originally posted by Trajanus Indeed, Bush actively lied about the existence of WMD. I can't blame him if he has suspicions of Saddam still having WMD, but has he proved it? Don't you agree that it is very dangerous if people can simply decide to go to war for reasons just based on assumptions? I've seen the explanation Colin Powell made one day to prove to the rest of the world that Saddam was working on WMD. He was talking about those mobile labs and some factories that "might" be able to be used for this purpose. I mean any child could see that it was not conclusive evidence, let alone worth calling evidence! Simply pathetic imo.

Trajanus, the Senate and House had access to the same information that Bush had. They voted for war.

	25-01-2004 08:33									#64
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POTUS reminds me of Crassus - who died in Iraq, the Parthians destroyed his legions and then poured molten gold down his throat in mockery of his legendary greed.

	25-01-2004 08:34									#65
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SCROTUM

	25-01-2004 08:36									#66
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yes he is

	25-01-2004 08:55									#67
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DROT

	25-01-2004 08:58									#68
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Ted, stick to posting sexist remarks about women. Plato said we were all destined to be good at one task, and that's yours.

	25-01-2004 09:14									#69
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This is how I exactly pictured future gulf war debate to be:

1) Found WMD
Rep: Nyah Nyah, I told you so~ We Win.
Dem: Shut up, we still didnt need to goto war for it

2)Not found WMD
Dem: Where is this so called WMD now? evidence are piling.. you lied!
Rep: Who cares we got our war. public doesnt care. We win.

	25-01-2004 09:18									#70
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Post edited, and Ted Striker gets 48 hours for making remarks about other people's family members.

Last edited by Urban Ranger on 25-01-2004 at 10:25

	25-01-2004 09:35									#71
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I heard Cheney lie the other day. He said they'd found those mobile weapons labs, which, as we remember, were hydrogen gas manufacturing trucks for spotter balloons. This was revealed in May, and yet Cheney is trotting out this lie seven months later.

	25-01-2004 10:22									#72
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quote: Originally posted by Ned As I said, if this is true, then everyone who formerly said that Saddam had WMD lied. That includes all the top Democrats from the Clinton administration and everyone who argued in favor of the Iraq War authorization in Congress, which includes Hillary Clinton and Senator Kerry.

Except nobody else went to war over such assertions.

	25-01-2004 10:46									#73
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quote: Originally posted by Whaleboy Bush claimed there were WMD, and that has proven to be fallacious. The evidence that they based that claim on was clearly faulty, which seems indicative of the quality of intelligence. Any claim based upon such poor quality intelligence, is most likely guess work, which they purported as the truth, which is a lie.

False, not fallacious. Reasoning is fallacious, a fact is false

	25-01-2004 10:47									#74
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quote: Originally posted by Ned As I said, if this is true, then everyone who formerly said that Saddam had WMD lied. That includes all the top Democrats from the Clinton administration and everyone who argued in favor of the Iraq War authorization in Congress, which includes Hillary Clinton and Senator Kerry. This is not an issue that the Democrats can win on if their nominee is Kerry. This is a Dean issue because he is the ONLY one running that has always been against the war.

You forgot Kucinich

	25-01-2004 11:32									#75
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Except nobody else went to war over such assertions.

That does not mean that only Bush lied. That means that he did not lie.

It does indicate a very severe intelligence problem.

	25-01-2004 11:34									#76
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quote: Originally posted by skywalker You forgot Kucinich

Why is that man still in the race.

Besides, he gives me the creeps. I can hardly imagine anyone voting for him for anything. The state that elected him to office must have a real screw loose.

	25-01-2004 11:38									#77
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Johnson lied about the second torpedo attack, which is what he used to justify retaliation. Everyone who was there has avvered there was no second attack, that they were just shooting at non-existant targets. Johnson didn't care that the incident was fictional, he still used it as justification for escalation. "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." - LBJ. Yeah, that's great justification or a war there. And Admiral Stockdale, who was a witness to the events, wrote in his 1984 book that there was nothing there, except American firepower. As to the first Tonkin incident, it was certainly provoked: "There have been some covert operations in that (Tonkin Gulf) area that we have been carrying on - blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth. So I imagine (the North Vietnamese) wanted to put a stop to it." - LBJ And I'll leave with this all-too familiar thought: "In Retrospect, many of the people who were associated with the war ..... were looking for any excuse to initiate bombing. ....." - former Undersecretary of State George Ball

A few days before I was discharge from the Navy, I was going into Long Beach and sitting next to me was a 2nd class GunnerMate from the Turner Joy and I asked him what happen out there. He told me that there was two NVA boats coming out to where they were and they had permission from Washington to fired at them. As soon as the boats were in range the the Turner Joy open fired and hit one the NVA boat and sunk it. The Maddox sunk the other boat. I will agree that the NVA boats did not fired at our Destroyers because they were never close enought to fired before they were sunk.
And btw an Admiral would not be on a Destroyers that is on patrol in 1964. They stayed on Cruiser or Carriers.
And this Gunnermate was the gunner on number 1 turret, and his turret got the direct hit on their NVA boat.
He was very proud of that fact.

	25-01-2004 11:53									#78
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quote: Originally posted by Ned As I said, if this is true, then everyone who formerly said that Saddam had WMD lied. That includes all the top Democrats from the Clinton administration and everyone who argued in favor of the Iraq War authorization in Congress, which includes Hillary Clinton and Senator Kerry. This is not an issue that the Democrats can win on if their nominee is Kerry. This is a Dean issue because he is the ONLY one running that has always been against the war.

Hey Ned even Saddam lied about his weapons. Remember he played a game with the US for 12 years by not allowing the Inspector go where ever they wanted and he kept up the game hinting that he had some somewhere, but we would never find them. Well Geroge call his bluff.

The only thing about this war I don't like is those young kids getting kill for that a$$hole Saddam. 40 years ago I was one of those kids, but I was lucky, I was in San Diego during the Cuban missile thing and was discharge on my discharge date of 26 March 65, but some of my buddy were extended to go to Nam and put the Marines ashore at Cam Ron Bay some 3 month after I was out. And I was in Boat Group Div. to. However none of by buddy were hit. But a mile away from were my buddy hit the beach there was a big fire fight with other boat hitting the beach. A guy from my old Division was at Mare Island a few years later and told me what had happen.

	25-01-2004 13:14									#79
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The problem with Vietnam was that we had no strategy for victory. Johnson was unwilling to do what was necessary to win. He was the opposite of Truman at the close of the Second World War. Johnson was willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of American lives in the hope of a negotiated peace deal. Truman was willing to hammer the enemy into a bloody pulp until they unconditionally surrendered.

While the use of nuclear weapons appalls me, I wonder what it what would happen had Johnson demanded that the North Vietnamese surrender immediately and unconditionally in August of 1964 or face total annihilation? I think they might have surrendered, but we shall never know. Goldwater was saying during the campaign that he would consider using nuclear weapons to win the war. Johnson was overly critical of Goldwater's position, implying that if we were used nuclear weapons that the Soviets would attack us with nukes of their own. If one thinks about that for more than a minute, the likelihood that the Soviet Union would place their country at risk for North Vietnam is very low.

	25-01-2004 14:01									#80
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quote: Originally posted by Ned That does not mean that only Bush lied. That means that he did not lie.

Strange logical deduction here.

quote: Originally posted by Ned It does indicate a very severe intelligence problem.

As indicated before, W knew that information was unreliable, yet he casted it as if it was ironclad, so he could push his own agenda with said information. He surely did lie somewhere.

Furthermore, just not that long ago, W rehashed the same old assertions -- about terrorism, about other countries having BCN weapons, etc. -- in the SotU address 2004.

	25-01-2004 14:04									#81
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quote: If one thinks about that for more than a minute, the likelihood that the Soviet Union would place their country at risk for North Vietnam is very low.

By that reasoning the likelihood that the US would place their country at risk for West Germany is very low. If the US nuked Vietnam and the Soviets did nothing then they'd be seen as weak. They couldn't have that in a global Cold War.

	25-01-2004 15:21									#82
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Imran, did Kruschev have a formal alliance with NV?

As to West Germany, Kennedy made it clear that an attack on West Germany would invoke a nuclear response by the US on the USSR. Kruschev had no such alliance with Ho and had not made anything clear.

Besides, the Cuban missile crisis showed that the Soviets would back down. They had no desire to see their country destroyed for Castro's sake. Later, in 67, they failed to support Egypt when it was being overrun by Israel. The evidence suggests that the USSR would go some distance to support their fellow communist regimes but would not risk nuclear war with the US.

	25-01-2004 15:25									#83
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger As indicated before, W knew that information was unreliable, yet he casted it as if it was ironclad, so he could push his own agenda with said information. He surely did lie somewhere. Furthermore, just not that long ago, W rehashed the same old assertions -- about terrorism, about other countries having BCN weapons, etc. -- in the SotU address 2004.

So, we have a litterally accurate statement by the President concerning Niger which is a lie by Democrat standards because the CIA disagreed with the Brits (concerning the reliability of the intelligence) and Bush was not entitled to rely on the Brits over the CIA?

Now, how again is that a lie?

	25-01-2004 16:13									#84
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Playing acute semantics with intelligence in order to justify invasion, particularly when it means using an ally's beliefs against the better judgement of your own intelligence services, may not quite be 'lying', per se, but it's not exactly being honest and straightfoward, which is what the American people deserve when being asked to send their children to war.

	25-01-2004 16:26									#85
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quote: Originally posted by Ned The problem with Vietnam was that we had no strategy for victory. Johnson was unwilling to do what was necessary to win.

You mean like start World War III?

As soon as I saw U.S. troops doing cordon and search operations and standing at intersections manning meaningless checkpoints I knew the US military had learned absolutely nothing from Vietnam.

	25-01-2004 16:35									#86
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Now, how again is that a lie?

He lied about Iraqis having BCN weapons without any evidence backing him up. He did not say it was a speculation -- he said it as if it were a fact.

Again, he did not even change his stance even after repeated attempts in locating these alleged weapons had failed.

	25-01-2004 19:16									#87
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quote: While the use of nuclear weapons appalls me, I wonder what it what would happen had Johnson demanded that the North Vietnamese surrender immediately and unconditionally in August of 1964 or face total annihilation? I think they might have surrendered, but we shall never know.

Wrong, we know exactly what would have happened. The leadership of the Democratic Party would have had Lyndon Johnson quietly put away on some excuse (he'd had a history of severe heart problems) and replaced with either Hubert Humphrey or Robert Kennedy.

Would have been interesting to see US diplomats try to sell NATO on the "total annihilation" of a third-world country that represented absolutely no threat to the United States...yeah, that would have been real popular...

	25-01-2004 19:28									#88
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon But this is the big one. Bush is wrong, Bush is a liar!!!!

This is politics, its not like that kind of stuff is out of the ordinary.

Case in point, our last President: "I did not have sex with that woman."

Nixon: "I am not a crook!"

LBJ, "We landed on the moon."

I don't understand why anyone takes anything from a politician at face value.

	25-01-2004 22:38									#89
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* Spiffor pops in the thread just to continue gloating

	25-01-2004 22:46									#90
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quote: Originally posted by GhengisFarb This is politics, its not like that kind of stuff is out of the ordinary.

And it should be punished.

quote: Case in point, our last President: "I did not have sex with that woman."

That resulted in a fat girl with a mouth full of spunk. Bush's lies started a war.

quote: Nixon: "I am not a crook!"

He was undermining democracy. How can you compare that with Clinton getting a blow-job.