Thursday, March 08, 2007

I Think I Maybe Confused

Let's see if I have this right...

-----{-}-> Given more than the full benefit of the doubt, the intelligence organizations of every major nation in the world - not just U.S. intelligence - believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This led to an invasion by The United States of America.

-----{-}-> The likely truth is that President George W. Bush had a personal agenda to invade Iraq and went as far as to schedule our invasion at a time that fit comfortably in his calendar

-----{-}-> There was due diligence on the part of the Bush Administration, we are to believe, when it came to presenting the case to the United Nations regarding the state of affairs in Iraq and the threat to the rest of the world

-----{-}-> The key players in the Bush Administration, it appears from all indications, lied. It was their deception that led to the invasion of Iraq.

-----{-}-> People at the highest level of the government of The United States of America, it appears, conducted a campaign to discredit and harm people who stood against the war.

-----{-}-> Those who speak out against "the war" are attacked by both the President, the Vice President and their subordinates. Being against "the war" is said to be UN-AMERICAN. The troops are used as pawns; the position being that to be against the war is to be against the troops.

-----{-}-> Those charged with reshaping Iraq - Paul Bremmer and Tommy Franks - failed miserably and then were given one of the most prestigious awards The United States of America has to offer.

-----{-}-> Every effort was made by those in the most powerful offices in the United States government, it appears, to manipulate both the media and the citizenry. The President and Vice President of The United States lied and had their subordinates do the same.

-----{-}-> Word from the seat of power in Washington, D.C. claimed that anyone involved in illegal activity would be dismissed from working in The White House. Karl Rove, who escaped indictment by the skin of his teeth, hasn't missed a day of work. Although his work has largely been related to saving his ass.

-----{-}-> The President of The United States of America put his reputation on the line in a national election; his record would be that stuff that led his party to a sweeping victory. In truth, the majority of candidates in his party stayed as far away from him as possible during the election - in public - while using him as much as possible - behind closed doors with no press access - to raise money. His party lost control of both houses of Congress.

-----{-}-> The President of The United States claimed that he would work with Congress for the greater good of the country. He has, by all indications, functioned as much as possible in the same way as he did before the election. He has ignored the will of the people who screamed for a change in our foreign policy.

-----{-}-> The Administration has asked for not only patience, but support. There is a new strategy; one involving a surge of troops that, in a limited period of time, will win the day in Baghdad which will lead to securing Iraq and achieving success in our mission. The originator of the strategy says that it is not a surge, indicating something short-term, but an escalation of the troop level. Semantics? A misunderstanding? An effort to spin the issue? Another lie on the part of the government?

-----{-}-> President Bush references 9/11 any time he is seeking support for one of his policies and believes the memory of the event will help him get his way. The work of The 9/11 Commission has, meanwhile, gone largely ignored. The work of The Iraq Study Group, whose members were hand picked by the Administration, has been basically rejected out of hand.

-----{-}-> Veterans of The War on Terror - fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq - who were injured are then required to fight the United States government in order to receive care. They and their families are put upon to cut through tons of red tape. Their issues with mental health are being largely ignored.

-----{-}-> Walter Reed Hospital, said to be one of the premier medical facilities in The United States of America, is not only providing substandard medical care, but also treating the veterans poorly as human beings.

-----{-}-> The Vice President's Chief of Staff has been indicted for and convicted of multiple felonies; the highest official so charged since the early 1980's. All indications are that the Vice President of the United States of America was intimately involved in inappropriate, at best, or illegal, at worst, activity.

This list came off the top of my head; without benefit of research. Am I following this correctly? Or am I mistaken somewhere along the way?

4 comments:

Miss Kitty said...

I do believe that's how it happened, Kilroy. [sigh]

Glad to see you're back! I was wondering what had become of you. :-)

Sheila said...

Well, your take on the whole situation is pretty much mine. I'm a Democrat and a Yellow Dog one at that. Back when the war of terror started I was living in Illinois and went to a rally and heard Senator Dick Durbin warn against the war. He was right then but took a lot of heat for his position. While the media was hoodwinked along with a lot of others, I think they are now covering the good, the bad and the ugly.

Anonymous said...

No, only a few countries believed there were WMD--which is a term you shouldn't bother with because the real question is nuclear or not. Nobody claims all countries believed it. Even at the time, only a handful did. Bush was not personally responsible in most senses. The defense contracting community wanted Iraq for a long time as a strategic position in the Middle East. The ones to get Iraq will be the ones to modernize much of the region--huge money. Colin Powell lied; this was blatantly obvious. The people weren't hard to manipulate. They don't know, they don't much want to know, and they want their lives to remain cozily in place no matter how much destruction that causes in places they don't have to look at. The only manipulation to sign people on was blowing the threat of terrorism out of proportion.

Anonymous said...

Sounds about right, except for the first one. The way Bush got the whole yellowcake story into the State of the Union is a scary bit of deception. Tipped off by an Italian con man that Saddam was purchasing yellowcake ore from Niger, the CIA quickly dismissed it as a fraud. Bush and Cheney (maybe just Cheney) wanted to use it as an excuse to attack Iraq, so they shared the tip with the UK, who included it in an intelligence report. Bush cited that intelligence report of "international belief" that Saddam had WMDs - and inserted it into the State of the Union despite the protests of the CIA.

Joe Wilson revealed it as a fraud, Cheney's people "outed" Valerie Plame as a spy in retribution, and Cheney got put behind bars for the rest of his life for treason. And Bush was Impeached for his body of lies.

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