Newsweek Lied, People Died

Nah.

I think calling Parados' - or any statements from anyone left of Attila the Hun on this thread "apologists" for Hussein is manifestly ridiculous - and only said by those wishing to slur and blur reality with emotive nonsense.

It is you people who ought to be on the ropes with the lack of any damn excuse for your war and the more and more bleak facts emerging about your government. I guess this emotive slurring is an attempt to deny the problems with the motivation for war, eh?

And Tico, now I will bold where you provided evidence to back up your claim that Saddam was not cooperating with the inspectors.......

Tico wrote:

I think Saddam was co-operating as nonly and slowly as he dared - and played a most annoying game of brinkmanship with the powers that were.

I am utterly gob-smacked by Tico's blather that the fact that THERE WERE NO WMD is irrelevant.

This is beginning to take on - much as I hate Nazi-comparison hysteria - the legend of the "stab-in-the-back" in post WW I Germany.

The WMD that shall forever be believed in, despite their absence...

Good analogy, Coney.

Pete Stark: Newsweek didn't lie
From Butrflynet's blog:

This hasn't hit the mainstream media yet so you'll have to read it from the horse's mouth and not wait for someone to tell you how to react to it.

http://www.house.gov/stark/news/109th/pressreleases/05-17_iraq.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Contact: Drew Nannis (202) 225-5065

STARK SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE ADMINISTRATION'S LATEST HYPOCRISY
Mr. Speaker,

The pot is calling the kettle black. The Administration is chastising Newsweek magazine for a story containing a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same Administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war. The same Administration responsible for the death of over 1,500 American servicemen and women and countless Iraqi civilians; the same Administration which shields its highest officials from responsibility for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

Under those circumstances, how can the Bush Administration, with a straight face, denounce a journalist for not checking all the facts before going public with a story?

Of course, Newsweek should have checked the facts more diligently before publishing their article. They made a big mistake. But, Mr. Speaker, we must keep this incident in perspective. Newsweek did make a mistake, but they had the dignity and honor to own up to it.

Unfortunately, I doubt the Bush Administration is capable of displaying such honesty. Instead, the Bush Administration focuses on public relations tactics to divert attention from their own incompetence and fabrications rather than focusing their energies on creating a plan to get our troops out of Iraq.

The hypocrisy of this Administration is astonishing and this most recent episode is, unfortunately, merely one example of many. Just yesterday Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said in reference to the Newsweek article, ?People lost their lives. People are dead. People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be very careful about what they do." I couldn?t agree more. People should be very careful about what they say and do; President Bush and his Cabinet, most of all.

Mr. Speaker, accountability and power cannot be separated. If the President accepts the duties and responsibilities of his office he must do exactly what he is asking Newsweek to do: he needs to tell Americans the truth about his own indiscretions in this tragic war.

-30-
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Butrflynet's comments:

Pete Stark is one heck of a congressman. I remember my mom campaigning to get him elected to congress while I was in high school in the early 70's. We had a gathering at our house in Pleasant Hill and Pete came to speak to the folks. I was impressed with him then and he's only gotten better as time has passed. Want to know more about Pete Stark? Here's the bio from his official website:

http://www.house.gov/stark/contact/biography.htm

This is a defining moment in American journalism. Will the corporate press wimp out and fold under pressure of the Taliban Republicans or will they finally remove the kidd gloves and start earning the privileged rights granted to them in our constitution?

Butrflynet

I hope not.

Time to leave politics alone for a while and go off and knit or some damn thing - these people are really beginning to frighten me - because they are actually not the loony right.

Who is Stark, BBB?

knit us yanks a few million handcuffs and leg irons why dontcha? The way things are proceeding we'll need them.

That is a sobering observation, indeed. However, i would be dishonest were i to ignore that the Big Lie has become enshrined in politics. And on one of the few occassion on which Hitler was actually right about something, it is indeed easier to fob off on the public than a small lie. Experience has and continues to demonstrate the rectitude of that hitlerian aphorism. Having swallowed the Big Lie whole, people are unwilling to acknowledge the lie, because it will shatter their entire thesis of what constitutes the best government. People will actually continue to cling to the Big Lie and the Big Liars, cling to them with desparation, rather than face the plummet into the abyss of honesty. People will prefer that some anonymous other's child will die in Iraq rather than admit the lie, admit the mistake, and do the hard work to pull up stakes, do the right thing by the Iraqis, and then get out as soon as possible. Very likely, the nightmare will not end any time soon.

Dlowan


Dlowan, I campaigned for Pete Stark to get him elected to congress in the 1970s. He has more integrity in his little finger than most polititians. He is one of the few polititians I've supported. He has never disappointed me.

Want to know more about Pete Stark? Here's the bio from his official website:

http://www.house.gov/stark/contact/biography.htm

BBB

If Bush and the members of PNAC knew there were no WMD's in Iraq and that Iraq really wasn't a threat, why would they invade the country?

That's what you guys keep saying, isn't it? That they lied? If they lied, then they knew that Saddam had no WMD's, right?

If they were really as duplicatous as you guys seem to believe, wouldn't you think they would have guaranteed themselves of finding some WMD's?

The fact that we haven't found them yet has NO BEARING AT ALL on the reasons we invaded Iraq. We know now what we know BECAUSE of the invasion. Otherwise, Saddam would STILL be suspected of having WMD's.

I think it's time for you guys on the left to find a new horse to flog. the horse you're flogging now is just a figment.

Thanks BBB.

The logic of it is so weird, Set.

Either:

1: There WERE never any WMD.

or

2: There WERE WMD - and Hussein destroyed them.

If he destroyed them, then, no matter how grudgingly and annoyingly, and sluggishly, he co-operated. with the orders to destroy them.


If people try the "He sent them to Syria" or Mars or whatever duck - then let 'em offer a shred of proof.

One would assume American and allied intelligence could do SOMETHING about witnessing such a move? They founf numerous WMD that were not there - surely they ought to have been able to see some being moved that were?

Tragically, Mc Gentrix - we have this dumb desire to find the truth. And listened to those who were questioning the either stupidly flawed, or fixed, intelligence before the war. Including your own intelligence services.

Sadly, given the damn things were the reason given for invading Iraq, you appear even more convinced of Bush's mendacity than I am.

Well, that's a totally different topic, I think.

Remember e.g. how long they are searching this guy Oscar Bini Lactose (spelling?)?

Thing is though, it was not THE reason given for invading Iraq, it was only one of the reasons.

It was the main reason that the media used to sell the war to the readers and viewers.

The Bush administration has not been found to have lied regarding the cause of war with Iraq. They have been found to have been wrong concerning the WMD's.

Flush Bush
The following is by Kristen Breitweiser, the amazing woman leader of the 911 Families. I would like to see her run for congress. ---BBB

Kristen Breitweiser

Flush Bush

How do we have an Administration lecturing Newsweek about "journalistic standards"--the failure to get on the record confirmation before printing a story -- when we went to war in Iraq on similar sloppy standards. Anybody remember Curveball? Or have we all forgotten the Senate Intelligence Report on WMD that discusses how our entire Intelligence Community and President Bush were duped by one bad allegedly "crazy" source who provided "dead wrong" intelligence?

Oh, that's right, I forgot that when the story of Curveball hit the media we were overwhelmed with steroids in baseball and the Schiavo debate. Remember the Schiavo debate--the "preservation of life" debate. How ironic. We couldn't discuss the fact that we were wrongly taken into a war where thousands have been killed and wounded--a war that has made the entire world less safe-- because apparently we needed to publicly debate a family's private decision whether a feeding tube should be removed from an incurably sick woman.

But, now we find ourselves overwhelmed by the debate over a story written by Mike Isikoff.

Anybody who has looked into some of the allegations floating around about the torture and homicides being carried out by our interrogators must realize that it is a possibility that something like flushing a Koran down a toilet could happen. What do you expect when you have interrogators basically given carte blanche to do whatever they want to detainees.

We all recall Alberto Gonzales commenting that the Geneva Convention was quaint, right? Or did he say it was cute? Doesn't matter. You get the point.

But, instead of immediately stopping these abuses, investigating them and coming up with clear instructions for our interrogators to stop them from re-occurring, what does this Administration do?

Nothing.

No discussion. Swept under the carpet, until journalists like Mike Isikoff write stories.

Now, 17 people are dead in riots stirred up by Islamic extremists for their own ends. And what does our Administration do? Hold hearings? Demand an independent investigation? Nope. Our Administration blames Newsweek for reporting the story and not getting a source to confirm the allegation on the record.

Here is a thought. What if the Administration had thoroughly investigated and cleared up the human rights abuses being committed by interrogators when they first learned of it so that (gasp) there was no story left for Mike Isikoff to write about?

Better yet, what if our leaders had actually sat down years ago and planned what they were going to do with "enemy combatants". Not just sat at a conference table and decided that they would hold people as "enemy combatants" for as long as they wanted and torture them at their own whim. What if our leaders actually thought about the consequences of their actions prior to making those actions?

We have major human rights abuses being carried out by our military and intelligence officers. Such human rights abuses are on their face morally reprehensible and wrong. Moreover, in the long run they put this nation at huge risk. Why? Because every person that is wrongfully held, tortured, and then wantonly released by us, immediately returns to their homeland, tells their story and becomes the poster child for why everybody should hate the Americans.

And these people do not forget.

They have long memories. The truth is that fifteen years from now when the current chain of command is long gone (sitting in the old folks home) people like you and me will suffer the consequences because it will be our kids and loved ones who will be in the wrong place at the wrong time when an emboldened "enemy combatant" or his daughter decides to blow up a building as payback for their treatment at gitmo.

If Newsweek holds Isikoff accountable, then I would like similar accountability in the Bush Administration. Afterall, how many thousands have died as a result of our President's bad executive branch standards--whether they be for taking us into a pre-emptive war in Iraq based on an erroneous source named Curveball or not providing clear instructions and training to interrogators of enemy combatants? All of these issues continue to further alienate us from the rest of the world and continue to make us less safe.

My take? Don't flush the Koran, Flush Bush.

It was the MAIN reason BUSH GAVE. Don't blame this on the media.
Read this speech by Bush and tell me what reason other than Saddam's WMD was he saying? The entire argument comes down to WMD. Without them Saddam was not a threat.

No filtering from the media. The speech as posted on WH website.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

McGentix is truly one of the faithful.

BBB
The filibuster freakout is all about Frist's 2008 presidential campaign.---BBB

Schumer Talk Before His Floor Speech
by Armando - Daily Kos
Wed May 18th, 2005 at 11:19:04 PDT

A bunch of bloggers, including Markos and myself, got to talk to Senator Schumer for about forty minutes before he went on the floor to deliver his powerful speech.

I would not say alot of news was made, except I personally got the very strong sense that this is going all the way. There is no realistic compromise on the horizon.

It boils down to this - the Republicans will not give up the Nuclear Option. And the Democrats can not accept it.

Why are the Republicans doing this when, in Schumer's words, there are 25 Republican Senators who believe in the filibuster? Four words.

The Extreme Religious Right. James Dobson & Co. To put it plainly, this is Schiavo Part 2. Frist has made a despicable Faustian bargain - do what Dobson tells him on the Nuclear Option, judicial nominees, and just about everything else, and they will back him for President in 2008.

It is that simple. Senator Schumer expressed amazement at the total control that the Extremists have over the WHOLE Republican Party. He stated that is has never been like this before.

Indeed, one can see and feel it. This is NOT good politics for the GOP. And they know it. But the control of the Extreme Right is complete. They can NOT say no to Dobson and his reactionary friends.

Break the rules? Who cares say Dobson & Co. Do the nuclear option and do it now.

There will be no compromise I predict. Frist, and when I say Frist I mean Dobson, will not have it. They are determined to go nuclear.

Sure .... if you have a shred of proof. Still haven't seen it. I understand you are burning with hatred and you despise Bush, as many leftists do, but your emotionally charged feelings toward him does not mean he lied. Is this offering your best?



It's clear to you, as I suppose it was clear when you read about the National Guard memo leading up to the election. You are convinced of his guilt, and are desperate to find any substantiation.



Newsweek "lied" as much as Bush "lied." I think both relied on the intelligence they had at the time. I think Newsweek is guilty only of shoddy journalism fostered by an intense desire to embarrass the Bush administration. I think Bush is guilty of being fearful that Saddam had WMD he hadn't accounted for, and might turn them over to terrorists, and took appropriate action in light of that concern. After both acted on the information they had, we learn that Newsweek's information was apparently wrong, and we still don't know where the WMD are/went.