"The Old Potomac Two Step"
OK, I never really discuss American politics on my blog, which is a shame. There just seems to be too many things to talk about that are happening in Holy Land. But, there is currently something going on in the United States that is really bothering. Oh, I know what you may be thinking, where do I start? I have so many things to choose from. 12 year old girls can now get abortion without their parents' permission or knowledge (This law has been passed in several states; most notably California, where Gov Arnold [can't spell his last name] proposed counter propositions which failed.) States are now seeing the fruits of their PC labor, where soft bail and sentences for sex offenders, pedophiles, and rapists have resulted in many publicized cases of abductions and murders of the young children of the nation. The loony city of San Francisco has now voted and passed a law stating that the military can no longer recruit in their city's high schools. Where else should I go? There's so many other places. But, let's go to the most obvious.
Democrats have to be the biggest yuppies in the world. They want to build on the momentum they feel they gained over the couple of weeks, with the failure of all 4 of Gov. Arnold's propositions and the election of two Democratic Governors in New Jersey and Virginia. (Of course, they neglect to mention that Mayor Bloomberg was re-elected in the great Blue state of New York, but whatever...) So, they're taking an old but trusted topic to the people; LIAR, LIAR, PRESIDENT BUSH'S PANTS ARE ON FIRE. The Democrats are resorting back to their old tricks of the President lied, so we could go to war with Iraq. Only now, they're adding a little bonus. They're saying that the only reason that they voted to go to war was because they didn't have the SAME intelligence as the President. Therefore, they couldn't make an informed decision. Better yet, they can't be held accountable for supporting the war when they didn't have all the facts on the table. This claim is completely preposterous for two main reasons.
1) The facts were all laid out for them to get. They just chose, either, not to do their home-work, or not to make any waves being afraid of back lash from their bosses; the constituents. My bet is on that they didn't do their home-work. Well, if they had they would have heard from every major intelligence agency in the WORLD what is obviously true. Iraq was a threat that needed to be taken out.
2) When President Clinton went to Congress to have them authorize a strike against Iraq, why didn't the Democrats question the intelligence right then and there? They whole-heartedly believed and still believe that the strike was the right move to do. Albeit, that Clinton fired all of about two missiles and hit an aspirin factory and a bedouin tent in the process. That's not the point. Every democrat stood up and concurred that the action was justified and Iraq's threat imminent. I have not heard one democrat today retract that position in their stance of being in favor of President' Clinton's actions. (If you like, you can go to the Republican's website to see more of the Democrat's tango with the truth.)
The Democrats clearly want to further their desperate attempt to paint the picture that Iraq is the new Vietnam. They're used Vietnam catch phrases like "Deceit", "Quagmire", and "Draft". However, it looks like they are the ones with the short attention span. They seem to have forgotten that it was their own party who perpertrated these acts against America. President Kennedy initiated America's involvement in the war, and President Johnson was the one who perpetuated it by lying and deceiving Congress and the people. He lied about troop numbers and death tolls. He actually created a system of double talk and deceit in order to keep the American people guessing and confused about what was happening in Vietnam. Just as in Israel with the Disengagement, President Nixon had to come in and clean up the mess that the Democrats made. This is extremely comparable to Oslo, vis-a-vie the Labor. It sent into motion a ripple of effect that 11-12 years later led to the Disengagement from Gaza. We would never have been in Iraq if Clinton had done the job correctly when he had the chance. Fast forward to today, and it seems that the Democrats are taking advantage of that short attention span and using on the American people by force feeding them propaganda to make them forget what we're doing. Facts don't matter when you've got the buzz words.
Before, I blab on any further, I would like to introduce a great blog that I read, Alex's blog. He has a great blog, which is extremely intelligent, insightful, and in depth. I encourage anyone who has any interest in politics to read it. Here is something that he wrote last Friday about this very topic:
"Who's Really Lying About Iraq?"
We've heard a lot from Democrats in the past week or two about how the president lied to us about Iraq, manipulated intelligence, etc. etc. This is not a new accusation -- Democrats and the left have been repeating it over and over for the past 3 years, no matter how many Congressional and independent investigations find absolutely no evidence of any such thing. Its been repeated so often, however, that it has now become an almost self-evident fact, a claim that is so often repeated in the media that it begins to be accepted as truth.The claim has been refuted countless times by conservatives. Norman Pohoretz, in an exceptional, thorough article in Commentary magazine, does it once again.There are two main "lies" that Bush supposedly told: 1) that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and 2) that Saddam posed an "imminent" threat to U.S. interests.Here we go again...
Yet even stipulating...that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the period leading up to the invasion, it defies all reason to think that Bush was lying when he asserted that they did. To lie means to say something one knows to be false. But it is as close to certainty as we can get that Bush believed in the truth of what he was saying about WMD in Iraq....George Tenet, his own CIA director, assured him that the case was "a slam dunk." This phrase would later become notorious, but in using it, Tenet had the backing of all fifteen agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States.The belief that Saddam was developing WMDs was not unique to the U.S. government. Although revisionists have tried to make it seem like the U.S. and Britain were alone in believing that Saddam had WMD in the run-up to the invasion, the reality is that:
In the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2002...one of the conclusions offered with "high confidence" was that
Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel, and--yes--France all agreed with this judgment.And then there's this quote:
The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.Who said this? Bush? Cheney? Try Hans Blix, in a UN report just a few months before the invasion.There's also a widespread belief that the State Department's intelligence division, INR, disagreed with the information presented in Colin Powell's UN presentation on Iraq's WMDs. According to Powell's deputy, Lawrence Wilkerson:
People say, well, INR dissented. That's a bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and running. That's all INR dissented on. They were right there with the chems and the bios.In conclusion:
"the consensus of the intelligence community," as Wilkerson puts it, "was overwhelming" in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq that Saddam definitely had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and that he was also in all probability well on the way to rebuilding the nuclear capability that the Israelis had damaged by bombing the Osirak reactor in 1981.In fact, Bush based much of his information not from his own administration, but the Clinton administration. I have, of course, posted this information numerous times on this blog, but for the sake of keeping this comprehensive, I'll post Podhoretz's quotes anyway:
Here is Clinton himself, speaking in 1998:
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program.
Here is his Secretary of State Madeline Albright, also speaking in 1998:
Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.
Here is Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser, who chimed in at the same time with this flat-out assertion about Saddam:
He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.
Keep Reading Here
I strongly encourage all of you to read the rest of the article and see all the facts. It's easy to get caught up in the mood of the moment. But, remember. Learn the facts, make an informed decision. We're at war with terrible people, who want to kill each and every one of us. We can't afford to play politics. It just might cost thousands or even millions of people their lives.
Shabbat Shalom
-OC
Democrats have to be the biggest yuppies in the world. They want to build on the momentum they feel they gained over the couple of weeks, with the failure of all 4 of Gov. Arnold's propositions and the election of two Democratic Governors in New Jersey and Virginia. (Of course, they neglect to mention that Mayor Bloomberg was re-elected in the great Blue state of New York, but whatever...) So, they're taking an old but trusted topic to the people; LIAR, LIAR, PRESIDENT BUSH'S PANTS ARE ON FIRE. The Democrats are resorting back to their old tricks of the President lied, so we could go to war with Iraq. Only now, they're adding a little bonus. They're saying that the only reason that they voted to go to war was because they didn't have the SAME intelligence as the President. Therefore, they couldn't make an informed decision. Better yet, they can't be held accountable for supporting the war when they didn't have all the facts on the table. This claim is completely preposterous for two main reasons.
1) The facts were all laid out for them to get. They just chose, either, not to do their home-work, or not to make any waves being afraid of back lash from their bosses; the constituents. My bet is on that they didn't do their home-work. Well, if they had they would have heard from every major intelligence agency in the WORLD what is obviously true. Iraq was a threat that needed to be taken out.
2) When President Clinton went to Congress to have them authorize a strike against Iraq, why didn't the Democrats question the intelligence right then and there? They whole-heartedly believed and still believe that the strike was the right move to do. Albeit, that Clinton fired all of about two missiles and hit an aspirin factory and a bedouin tent in the process. That's not the point. Every democrat stood up and concurred that the action was justified and Iraq's threat imminent. I have not heard one democrat today retract that position in their stance of being in favor of President' Clinton's actions. (If you like, you can go to the Republican's website to see more of the Democrat's tango with the truth.)
The Democrats clearly want to further their desperate attempt to paint the picture that Iraq is the new Vietnam. They're used Vietnam catch phrases like "Deceit", "Quagmire", and "Draft". However, it looks like they are the ones with the short attention span. They seem to have forgotten that it was their own party who perpertrated these acts against America. President Kennedy initiated America's involvement in the war, and President Johnson was the one who perpetuated it by lying and deceiving Congress and the people. He lied about troop numbers and death tolls. He actually created a system of double talk and deceit in order to keep the American people guessing and confused about what was happening in Vietnam. Just as in Israel with the Disengagement, President Nixon had to come in and clean up the mess that the Democrats made. This is extremely comparable to Oslo, vis-a-vie the Labor. It sent into motion a ripple of effect that 11-12 years later led to the Disengagement from Gaza. We would never have been in Iraq if Clinton had done the job correctly when he had the chance. Fast forward to today, and it seems that the Democrats are taking advantage of that short attention span and using on the American people by force feeding them propaganda to make them forget what we're doing. Facts don't matter when you've got the buzz words.
Before, I blab on any further, I would like to introduce a great blog that I read, Alex's blog. He has a great blog, which is extremely intelligent, insightful, and in depth. I encourage anyone who has any interest in politics to read it. Here is something that he wrote last Friday about this very topic:
"Who's Really Lying About Iraq?"
We've heard a lot from Democrats in the past week or two about how the president lied to us about Iraq, manipulated intelligence, etc. etc. This is not a new accusation -- Democrats and the left have been repeating it over and over for the past 3 years, no matter how many Congressional and independent investigations find absolutely no evidence of any such thing. Its been repeated so often, however, that it has now become an almost self-evident fact, a claim that is so often repeated in the media that it begins to be accepted as truth.The claim has been refuted countless times by conservatives. Norman Pohoretz, in an exceptional, thorough article in Commentary magazine, does it once again.There are two main "lies" that Bush supposedly told: 1) that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and 2) that Saddam posed an "imminent" threat to U.S. interests.Here we go again...
Yet even stipulating...that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the period leading up to the invasion, it defies all reason to think that Bush was lying when he asserted that they did. To lie means to say something one knows to be false. But it is as close to certainty as we can get that Bush believed in the truth of what he was saying about WMD in Iraq....George Tenet, his own CIA director, assured him that the case was "a slam dunk." This phrase would later become notorious, but in using it, Tenet had the backing of all fifteen agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States.The belief that Saddam was developing WMDs was not unique to the U.S. government. Although revisionists have tried to make it seem like the U.S. and Britain were alone in believing that Saddam had WMD in the run-up to the invasion, the reality is that:
In the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2002...one of the conclusions offered with "high confidence" was that
Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel, and--yes--France all agreed with this judgment.And then there's this quote:
The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.Who said this? Bush? Cheney? Try Hans Blix, in a UN report just a few months before the invasion.There's also a widespread belief that the State Department's intelligence division, INR, disagreed with the information presented in Colin Powell's UN presentation on Iraq's WMDs. According to Powell's deputy, Lawrence Wilkerson:
People say, well, INR dissented. That's a bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and running. That's all INR dissented on. They were right there with the chems and the bios.In conclusion:
"the consensus of the intelligence community," as Wilkerson puts it, "was overwhelming" in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq that Saddam definitely had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and that he was also in all probability well on the way to rebuilding the nuclear capability that the Israelis had damaged by bombing the Osirak reactor in 1981.In fact, Bush based much of his information not from his own administration, but the Clinton administration. I have, of course, posted this information numerous times on this blog, but for the sake of keeping this comprehensive, I'll post Podhoretz's quotes anyway:
Here is Clinton himself, speaking in 1998:
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program.
Here is his Secretary of State Madeline Albright, also speaking in 1998:
Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.
Here is Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser, who chimed in at the same time with this flat-out assertion about Saddam:
He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.
Keep Reading Here
I strongly encourage all of you to read the rest of the article and see all the facts. It's easy to get caught up in the mood of the moment. But, remember. Learn the facts, make an informed decision. We're at war with terrible people, who want to kill each and every one of us. We can't afford to play politics. It just might cost thousands or even millions of people their lives.
Shabbat Shalom
-OC
posted by Olah Chadasha @ 11/18/2005 03:26:00 PM
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1 Comments:
You write beautifully.
Hope your Aliyah goes well.
Need anything - just drop me a line.
JG
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