Cycloptichorn wrote:I think that the admin went about this very carefully.
I would certainly hope so! (Let's say we agree on that!) ;-)
Cycloptichorn wrote:They used three tactics in order to cover their asses on this one,
Making them the first politicians in history to do that.
Cycloptichorn wrote:and they both worked beautifully in manipulating those who couldn't see through the rhetoric:
Translation of italicized phrase above: "those who disagree with me".
Cycloptichorn wrote:1. Conflation. Bush mentioned Iraq and Al Quaeda together in speeches CONSTANTLY. This has the effect of linking the two together in people's minds, and explains why we saw all those polls where people believed Iraq was linked to 9/11.
While the media has done a yeoman's job of pretending the question of Iraqi involvement in planning, funding and carrying out the 9/11 attacks is one that's been answered with an emphatic "NO!", I believe that an unbiased person presented with what information is available must realize that the real answer is at least an emphatic "MAYBE!".
During the 9/11 commission hearings, Mr. Ben-Veniste asked middle-east expert and former adviser on Iraq to the 1992 campaign of Bill Clinton, Laurie Mylroie, "Again, do you subscribe to the notion that in fact Mohammad Atta met with Mr. al-Ani in Prague in the spring of 2001?" To which Ms. Mylroie replied, "I think it's an open question. I don't have the information that allows me to make a clear judgment one way or another." How is it that this reasonably acknowledged innability to make a "clear judgement one way or the other" was presented to the global public as a very clear judgement that there was no linkage? Despite significant evidence, the left has hung its hat on the absence of absolute proof and claims to know what experts in the field do not claim to know.
(http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing3/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-07-09.pdf)
Further, more recently this same Middle-east expert has spoken about new evidence that further substantiates the evidence Ben-Vensite and his cohorts so quickly and enthusiastically cast aside:
Under the headline "The Saddam-9/11 Link Confirmed", published on 5/8/04, Ms. Mylroie wrote in part:
Quote:America's leading lights, including those in government responsible for dealing with terrorism and with Iraq, made a mammoth blunder. They failed to recognize that starting with the first assault on New York's World Trade Center, Iraq was working with Islamic militants to attack the United States. This failure left the country vulnerable on September 11, 2001. Many of those who made this professional error cannot bring themselves to acknowledge it; perhaps, they cannot even recognize it. They mock whomever presents information tying Iraq to the 9/11 attacks; discredit that information; and assert there is "no evidence." What they do not do is discuss in a rational way the significance of the information that is presented. I myself have experienced this many times, including in testimony before the 9/11 Commission, when as I responded to a Commissioner's question, a fellow panelist repeatedly interrupted, screeching "That is not evidence," even as C-SPAN broadcast the event to the entire country.
Later in the same article, she went on:
Quote:Never before in this country's history has a president ordered American soldiers into battle, without fully explaining why they are asked to risk life and limb. One would never know from the administration's public stance that senior officials, including the President, believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Iraq was indeed involved in those assaults. There is considerable information to that effect, described in this piece and elsewhere. They include Iraqi documents discovered by U.S. forces in Baghdad that U.S. officials have not made public.
We are now engaged in the most difficult military conflict this country has fought in thirty years. Even before the fiasco at Abu Ghraib became widely known, both the American public and international opinion were increasingly skeptical of U.S. war aims.
In taking on and eliminating the Iraqi regime, Bush corrected a policy blunder of historic proportions. His decision for war was both courageous and necessary. Now, he needs to make it clear just why that decision was made.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13323
I am not in a position to claim to know that Iraq was involved with 9/11, nor do I think that is a question anyone needed to answer to justify returning to the battlefield there. Saddam gave us the only justification we needed, and he did it daily during the Clinton years. 9/11 simply made doing something about Saddam's breach of his ceasefire obligations that much more necessary.
And let me clarify a point on which you and others seem confused: In our war with terrorism, we are not exclusively at war with Al Qaeda any more than we were exclusively at war with guys named Hanns during WWII; we are at war with
terrorists and their sponsors. Bush has been clear about this from day one (9/12). That you and others want to quibble about details at the periphery does not alter that core reality.
9/11 was the flash point that pushed us to enter this war, but the notion that we are going to forego taking the battle to this or that terrorist group or terror-sponsoring regime simply because they did or did not partake in a specific act of terror is naive at best.
