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ChasingBlueSky

935 False Statements by Bush & Co

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Many in the anti-Bush camp have been beating the drums for a long time about the endless parade of lies that have come from the White House since Iraq became a target.

Well, it seems that a couple of people went about and counted every single one of them. It still boggles my mind how our Congress is just fine with not pushing for an Impeachment with staggering numbers like this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/misinformation_study

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WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.



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The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.



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Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.




And somehow we are to trust this administration still?
_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

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But . . . but . . . Clinton got a blowjob! And he lied about it!



Another right wing lie. He did not actually get a blow job. Nor did he "lie" about it.

Just another figment of the imagination of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Richard Mellon Scafe, thy name is Satan.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

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I read it as evidence of the need for (1) more technically competant individuals in the intelligence community (IC); (2) more stringent and better utilization of outside subject matter expertise by the IC, e.g., the JASONs; & (3) institutional-cultural change to enable dissident voice.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

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I read it as evidence of the need for (1) more technically competant individuals in the intelligence community (IC); (2) more stringent and better utilization of outside subject matter expertise by the IC, e.g., the JASONs; & (3) institutional-cultural change to enable dissident voice.



(4) When considering something as significant as war, leaders should consider information and let it lead them to conclusions, rather than using their desired conclusions to filter the information. Putting the cart before the horse isn't a particularly efficient means of progress, and the person who does it looks foolish to all observers.

Blues,
Dave
"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

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I read it as evidence of the need for (1) more technically competant individuals in the intelligence community (IC); (2) more stringent and better utilization of outside subject matter expertise by the IC, e.g., the JASONs; & (3) institutional-cultural change to enable dissident voice.



What an appropriate name!!

:)

It's not really 935 false statements, it's the same one made 935 times. Most people don't reevaluate their statements every time - they evaluate once, decide it is accurate, and then repeat it until proven wrong. In Bush's case, might require a bit more to admit it was wrong.

It was proven wrong once the army was in Iraq. Prior to that, it was not.

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but it wasn't proven right, either.....

it was assumed, because they wanted it to be right....

more than 1 lie ,,, told 935 times...too

there were a few lies,,, each told often enough to satisfy the whims of the Bush Admin....
.... who set as a goal,,,, waaaaay before 9-11
to 'go after hussein'...

like gossip ,, the idea is to repeat something long enough and often enough, that whether it's right or not doesn't matter.. what matters is,,, IF people believe it's right...and humans,,, for all their so-called intelligence,,,,are very convinceable beings...
and often accept things as true,,, without real proof....

..Should we believe something on "say -so" ???? alone??
I should say NOT !!!!:|

fear-mongering at it's worst...
[:/]

jmy

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False Statements by Bush




Becarful calling wrong information false! apparently to some of the Bush supporters wrong, incorrect, and misleading information is not considered false to them.
I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

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Becarful calling wrong information false! apparently to some of the Bush supporters wrong, incorrect, and misleading information is not considered false to them.



wrong = incorrect = false

But the key question is whether they were "lying"

Do you want to make an argument that false always means the same thing as lying?


. . =(_8^(1)

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No my argument was simple if we received information that is not true then it is false information.

That’s all.
Belive it or not these days we even have to argue about that as some can not admit when something is obviosly false.
I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

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Belive it or not these days we even have to argue about that as some can not admit when something is obviosly false.



of course we do - there's a gigantic difference between ignorance and deceit.



What is the probability that they were just ignorant on so many unrelated issues? (Yellowcake, centrifuge tubes, RPVs, chemical weapons, bioweapons, "we know where they are", AQ connections, etc., etc., etc.)

I mean, that would have to be the most AMAZING run of bad luck.

Occam suggests lies as the most likely explanation.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Occam would actually suggest that a guy that keeps getting caught trying to cheat is still trying to cheat.

You believed, or at least wanted to believe that Iraq was disarmed in 2002. But would you have staked your life on it? How about the entire nation?

You're focusing on the bits of propoganda - the yellow cakes - rather than the overall argument in dispute - was Hussein hiding weapons that he could use against Israel, against US.

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>You believed, or at least wanted to believe that Iraq was disarmed
>in 2002. But would you have staked your life on it? How about the entire
>nation?

Instead we just saw ~4000 US soldiers killed, which to some people is apparently not even worthy of consideration.

The decision to allow inspections to finish would have resulted in KNOWING if Saddam had disarmed, thus protecting both the US and allowing those 4000 US soldiers to go on living. Instead we invaded on bad intelligence. It was a bad decision, and no amount of revisionist history will change that. Time to admit it and move on.

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Occam isn’t always right ... whether applied to those who were pro-invasion finding intelligence/construing indicators in intelligence data that fit their hypothesis/policy goal or those pushing to Hussayn what they thought he wanted to hear (otherwise may have had grave implications).

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

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>You believed, or at least wanted to believe that Iraq was disarmed
>in 2002. But would you have staked your life on it? How about the entire
>nation?

Instead we just saw ~4000 US soldiers killed, which to some people is apparently not even worthy of consideration.



no, the number of soldiers lost to achieve that purpose was well under 1000. It was Bush's (and your's - you still won't answer my question on that) insistence on bringing democracy there that cost 90% of the lives.

Allowing the inspections to finish is the lame answer that ignores 12 years of failures on this front where SH tapdanced back and forth over the line of compliance. Clinton had to bomb Iraq repeatedly to try to encourage compliance, with limited success.

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Okay, I went to:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?src=home&context=overview&id=945

I gave the report an overview, and I found this interesting.

First, I contend that this is not a non-partisan organization.

Second, out of 900-ish contentions of lying, they cite only six instances in their "exhaustive" research.

Third, they do not cite the sources to back their claims.

Fourth, they ignore the world opinion, and intelligence at the time that agreed with US intel assessments.

Their report is then, undone in one of the concluding paragraphs citing this quote from President Bush:
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And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: "It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power."



This "study" is a which hunt based on hypothesis, conjecture and "what-ifs".
So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

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>no, the number of soldiers lost to achieve that purpose was well under
>1000.

So 1000 dead soldiers is acceptable for a war begun on false pretenses?

>It was Bush's (and your's - you still won't answer my question on that)
>insistence on bringing democracy there that cost 90% of the lives.

?? Huh?

>Allowing the inspections to finish is the lame answer that ignores 12 years
>of failures on this front . . .

No, invading instead of waiting two months - and thus seeing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and thousands of US soldiers - is lame. Waiting for a report before committing to a course that kills tens of thousands is actually a pretty good decision.

Again, you can theorize how horrible it would be if we didn't invade Iraq. Saddam might have thumbed his nose at us, or scowled in a menacing manner! They might have found a bit of degraded VX on a shell that had been destroyed by a US bomber in 1996! All of that pales in comparison to the tens of thousands who are dead because of a foolish, greedy and shortsighted decision to attack before inspections were complete.

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>>>>>>>>>>>>It still boggles my mind how our Congress is just fine with not pushing for an Impeachment with staggering numbers like this.


The R's were and are pathetic. To follow their lead would only reinforce this, 'they're all the same' idiocy. With a large lead in the House, an impeachment is a lock, but for what, so the party of garbage can clammer how petty the D's are? Not worth it, let it go and get a Dem in office then really fuck you the R's with things like not depriving poor people and other things R's like to do.

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>no, the number of soldiers lost to achieve that purpose was well under
>1000.

So 1000 dead soldiers is acceptable for a war begun on false pretenses?



don't be obtuse - well under is not the same as equals. And as I've been saying, the pretenses were only false to the naive. Everyone with a clue knew the score - Saddam danced over the line at the wrong time and DC no longer had a public afraid of committing ground troops.

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>It was Bush's (and your's - you still won't answer my question on that)
>insistence on bringing democracy there that cost 90% of the lives.

?? Huh?



In 2004 you insisted that the US was responsible for staying in Iraq until it became stable. We made a mess, have to clean it up. I advocated leaving.

So where do you stand now? Are we still responsible for staying there?


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>Allowing the inspections to finish is the lame answer that ignores 12 years
>of failures on this front . . .

No, invading instead of waiting two months - and thus seeing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and thousands of US soldiers - is lame. Waiting for a report before committing to a course that kills tens of thousands is actually a pretty good decision.



Waiting two months wouldn't result in a definitive answer. Just another answer of 'we didn't see any.' How many times were UN inspectors stopped at gunpoint at buildings during the decade of inspections?

The definitive answer came from look ourselves, without asking permission to open a door.

Wait two months - that would increase US fatalities. The summer gets hot. They staged for a spring time invasion and once that started, the only thing that would stop it would have been Hussein accepting terms. (Of course, the terms offered were ridiculous and Bush would have really been in a pickle had they been accepted)

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