Gelis - So Wolfowitz said that there were many reasons for doing it, but they focused their message around the best one as they saw it. Seems pretty logical, reasonable behavior to me. What does it mean to you?
As reported in another thread, there seems to be an effort coming from (hold your breath) Libertarians!! to bring Clinton back. Heard this on talk radio this a.m.
I think Wolfowitz's account of why the WMD issue was chosen was probably on target. A lot could be said about Wolfowitz's blurt, but I haven't heard anyone comment that it was in part a decision on the part of the Pentagon to set Powell up for his debacle at the UN.
It sounds to me more like good advertising principles, always emphasize the most emotional aspect of what you are selling even if that is not it's most important. You know, like when the right accuses the Dems of using scare tactics regarding Social Security, yeah like that. oooo Weapons of mass Destruction. When what we really want is control of the middle east oil supply. (and Saddam's head).
And Wolfie may be really wrong about getting our troops out of SA. This week's difficulties may lead to a request from the royals for MORE troops not less.
Even if it is a lie within a lie within a lie. Jesus Christ folks-what does it take for you to realize that this Jerk is a crook of the worst kind in the most corrupt regime since HITLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No wonder there was a veto of the world court - these guys are world criminals -----------
I know. The desire to find a justifying rationale for all of this precisely echoes the stories of how decent Germans kept trying to rationalize Hitler. This is often said, but never enough.
What you said about the World Court jogged something in my brain. A friend wrote a book about the vigilantes, about that twist of law, and because I typed up the final copy (argh!) I knew that story pretty well. It reminds me that there is a tradition in common law for citizen's arrest. The administration has cut itself away from the law of the world, but it has cannot detach itself from common law in this country. In the past few days I've begun to realize that there really ARE grounds for impeachment now.
r
Scrat said
Gelis - So Wolfowitz said that there were many reasons for doing it, but they focused their message around the best one as they saw it. Seems pretty logical, reasonable behavior to me. What does it mean to you,
----------
At first blush ...... a lie is a lie is a lie
At second blush ...... checks and balances are no longer in place
At third blush ...... do you really think it is ok to lie ..... What does it mean to you to lie to people that trust you not to lie?
Scrat, it isn't so much that Wolfowitz focused on the "best" reason for attacking Iraq. That would not be a deceptive action. It is that the story changed weekly as to the "reason" for the pre-emptive war. It was as if they were trying on a new story every few weeks to see what happened in the polls. The most outrageous idea that was swallowed whole by more than 60% of US citizens was that this was a war against terrorism and al-Qaeda.
Rescuing Private Lynch, Forgetting Rachel Corrie
By Naomi Klein, The Guardian
May 27, 2003
Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie could have passed for sisters. Two all-American blondes, two destinies forever changed in a Middle East war zone. Private Jessica Lynch, the soldier, was born in Palestine, West Virginia. Rachel Corrie, the activist, died in Israeli-occupied Palestine.
Corrie was four years older than 19-year-old Lynch. Her body was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza seven days before Lynch was taken into Iraqi custody on March 23. Before she went to Iraq, Lynch organized a pen-pal program with a local kindergarten. Before Corrie left for Gaza, she organized a pen-pal program between kids in her hometown of Olympia, Washington, and children in Rafah.
Lynch went to Iraq as a soldier loyal to her government. Corrie went to Gaza to oppose the actions of her government. As a US citizen, she believed she had a special responsibility to defend Palestinians against US-built weapons, purchased with US aid to Israel. In letters home, she described how fresh water was being diverted from Gaza to Israeli settlements, how death was more normal than life. "This is what we pay for here," she wrote.
Unlike Lynch, Corrie did not go to Gaza to engage in combat: she went to try to thwart it. Along with her fellow members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she believed that the Israeli military's incursions could be slowed by the presence of highly visible "internationals." The killing of Palestinian civilians may have become commonplace, the thinking went, but Israel doesn't want the diplomatic or media scandals that would come if it killed a US student.
In a way, Corrie was harnessing the very thing that she disliked most about her country: the belief that American lives are worth more than any others - and trying to use it to save a few Palestinian homes from demolition.
Believing her fluorescent orange jacket would serve as armor, Corrie stood in front of bulldozers, slept beside wells and escorted children to school. If suicide bombers turn their bodies into weapons of death, Corrie turned hers into the opposite - a weapon of life, a "human shield."
When that Israeli bulldozer driver looked at Corrie's orange jacket and pressed the accelerator, her strategy failed. It turns out that the lives of some US citizens - even beautiful, young, white women - are valued more than others. And nothing demonstrates this more starkly than the opposing responses to Rachel Corrie and Pvt Jessica Lynch.
When the Pentagon announced Lynch's successful rescue, she became a hero, complete with "America loves Jessica" fridge magnets, stickers, tee-shirts, mugs, country songs and an NBC made-for-TV movie. According to former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, President George Bush was "full of joy for Jessica Lynch." Her rescue, we were told, was a testament to a core American value: as West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller said to the Senate: "We take care of our people."
Do they? Rachel Corrie's death, which made the papers for two days and then virtually disappeared, has met with almost total official silence, despite the fact that eyewitnesses claim it was a deliberate act. President Bush has said nothing about a US citizen killed by a US-made bulldozer bought with US tax dollars. A US congressional resolution demanding an independent inquiry has been buried in committee, leaving the Israeli military's investigation - which cleared itself of any wrongdoing - as the only official investigation.
The ISM says that this non-response has sent a clear, and dangerous, signal. According to Olivia Jackson, a 25-year-old British citizen in Rafah: "After Rachel was killed, [the Israeli military] waited for the response from the American government and the response was pathetic. They know they can get away with it, and it has encouraged them to keep on going."
First there was Brian Avery, a 24-year-old US citizen shot in the face on April 5. Then Tom Hurndall, a British ISM activist shot in the head and left brain dead on April 11. Next was James Miller, the British cameraman shot dead while wearing a vest that said "TV." In all of these cases, eyewitnesses say the shooters were Israeli soldiers.
There is something else that Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie have in common: Both of their stories have been distorted by the military for its own purposes. According to the official story, Lynch was captured in a bloody gun battle, mistreated by sadistic Iraqi doctors, then rescued in another storm of bullets by heroic Navy Seals. In the past weeks, another version has emerged. The Iraqi doctors who treated Lynch found no evidence of battle wounds, and donated their own blood to save her life. Most embarrassing of all, witnesses have told the BBC that those daring Navy Seals already knew there were no Iraqi fighters left in the area when they stormed the hospital.
But while Lynch's story has been distorted to make its protagonists appear more heroic, Corrie's story has been posthumously twisted to make her, and her fellow ISM activists, appear sinister.
For months, the Israeli military had been looking for an excuse to get rid of the ISM "troublemakers." It found it in Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the two British suicide bombers. It turns out that they had attended a memorial service for Corrie in Rafah, a fact the Israeli military has seized on to link the ISM to terrorism. Members of ISM point out that the event was open to the public, and that they knew nothing of the British visitors' intentions.
In the past two weeks, half a dozen ISM activists have been arrested, several deported, and the organization's offices raided. The crackdown is spreading to all "internationals," meaning there are fewer people in the occupied territories to either witness the abuses or assist the victims. On Monday, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process told the security council that dozens of UN aid workers had been prevented from getting in and out of Gaza, calling it a violation of "Israel's international humanitarian law obligations."
On June 5 there will be a international day of action for Palestinian rights. One of the demands is for the UN to send a monitoring force into the occupied territories. Until that happens, many are determined to continue Corrie's work. More than 40 students at her former college, Evergreen State, Olympia, have signed up to go to Gaza with the ISM this summer.
So who is a hero? During the attack on Iraq, some of Corrie's friends emailed her picture to MSNBC asking that it be included on the station's "wall of heroes," along with Jessica Lynch. The network didn't comply, but Corrie is being honored in other ways. Her family has received more than 10,000 letters of support, communities across the country have organized memorial services and children from the occupied territories are being named Rachel. It's not a made-for-TV kind of tribute, but maybe that's for the best.
Naomi Klein 's most recent book is "Fences and Windows."
In fact, Kara, the lack of focus in Afghanistan, and the poverty of the allocation of troops and resources there, coupled with the focus on and the squandering of resources in Iraq, have given Al-Quaeda the opportunity to regroup. There is a resurgence in the Taliban, as well. In terms of a war on terrorism, this disgusting example of imperliast adventuring represents a significant set-back.
It's lying, no two ways about it.
Our previous president lied and he did so once about a private matter which was not the business of the people.
War is definitely the business of the people and this administration lied -- not once, but continually over a period of years. It doesn't really matter why they lied -- whether it was testing public opinion or dodging interdepartmental bullets or finding excuses for oil greed -- they lied and lied and lied.
It's bad, but the worst part of it is listening to Americans who go on and on about patriotism try to JUSTIFY lies about life and death issues to the American public. Aren't there any Bush supporters who are anguished about their president who caused untold numbers of deaths as the result of a series of lies?
And his supporters in the legislative branch who avoided calling him a liar?
And his supporters in the religious community who have, notably, said nothing about the moral implications of his constant lies?
PS -- Kara, that's a lovely CS Lewis quote.
Lewis would have something to say about this.
Gelis - I'm sorry, but exactly where did it say that anyone
lied? The article states that Wolfowitz said that they agreed to focus on one reason, but if it also claimed that the reason they chose was false, I missed that specific point.
Can you cite me the sentence or sentences on which you base this claim, so that I can determine whether I missed something?
Thanks.
Kara wrote:Scrat, it isn't so much that Wolfowitz focused on the "best" reason for attacking Iraq. That would not be a deceptive action. It is that the story changed weekly as to the "reason" for the pre-emptive war. It was as if they were trying on a new story every few weeks to see what happened in the polls. The most outrageous idea that was swallowed whole by more than 60% of US citizens was that this was a war against terrorism and al-Qaeda.
Kara - That may be
your point, but that is not the point of Gelis' citation, to which I was referring.
If that
is your point, please cite me some examples of how the administration was "trying on a new story every few weeks". You may be right, but I didn't see this happening, so I'd welcome anything you can offer to show me what you mean. Thanks.
Scrat, you are Borg aren't you .....'we are Borg, resistance is futile ..... you will be assimilated, we are the collective
Gelis - Should I take your non-answer as evidence that the article did not state that the reason in question was a lie?
OK, sorry ..... it's just that you are so damn cute ..
Convince me that there are WMDs in Iraq or convince me that Bush knew there were before he attacked Iraq and you win tthe I heart Bush beanie.
Best you are gonna get from me you little rascal.
Bush wanted to go into Iraq. Bush didn't have a legitimate reason for invading another country (a silly little requirement of our Constitution). There were a bunch of things he could say to convince us that war was necessary, none of them known to be true. He tries one after another. Each "try" is an attempt to persuade through deception. That's a fancy way of saying: he lied. You want to know the stories he tried out? Whatsamatter? Fox didn't give you the whole news? Well, okay. Now you have the internet.
(Honest to god! What are we dealing with here?)
Gelis - Actually, what I've gotten already is far, far better; that being proof that you fabricated your claim that Wolfowitz stated that WMDs being the reason for the war was a lie.
Thanks for playing! It doesn't happen every day, so I love any opportunity I get to be right!
