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Who Lied?

oldreliable67

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The "Bush Lied!" meme has gotten a lot of play lately, and has been mentioned in several threads here at DP. Bush responded to it in a Veteran's Day speech. (And as a veteran, no, I did not resent his using that occasion to do so.) DNC Chairman Howard Dean was on Meet The Press this past Sunday and repeated and repeated and repeated the "Bush lied" mantra, well, repeatedly. Consequently, I have begun to wonder if usage of said mantra has been orchestrated by the DNC in its continuing attacks on Bush. Don't know, but maybe there is another conspiracy theory in there for those who dig such things!

While wondering about such, I came across a mention at techcentralstation.com on the subject. The recommendation: ask Google!
Simply Google "Clinton Iraq 1998" and one gets at the time of this writing over 3,600,000 hits. As the author, Bryan Preston says,

"Google is not just a search engine; it's also something of a wayback machine. It can take us back to the last time prior to 2003 that the United States waged a campaign against Saddam Hussein."

Clicking on the very first link took me to a CNN story dated December 16, 1998 about President Clinton warning Iraq that its failure to comply with UN weapons inspections left him no choice but to attack. And attack he did, launching Operation Desert Fox, which destroyed Iraq's intelligence headquarters and a few other points of concern. Clinton enumerated his reasons for the operation as follows:

"Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons,"

And:

"Earlier today I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces,"

"Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,"

Another Google link finds a story with the following quote:

"Mr. President, today, along with Senators McCain, Lieberman, Hutchison and twenty-three other Senators, I am sending a letter to the President to express our concern over Iraq's actions and urging the President 'after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.'"

The letter quoted goes on to detail the many ways Iraq has violated its post-Gulf War obligations to the UN (those violations being among the causes for war in 2003) and the Coalition that liberated Kuwait after the 1990 Iraqi invasion. It was written by Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. Today Sen. Levin is among those Democrats who publicly accuse President Bush of lying about WMD in order to get the U.S. into war with Iraq.

Link to techcentralstation.com

Clearly, if the Bush administration was complicitous in some big lie, so was the Clinton administration. But of course, as the "Big Lie" shouters will oh-so-quickly respond, it was the Bush administration that took us to war. (Debaters: there is a name for that technique in debating, but it escapes me at the moment. What is that technique called?)

Now, in the interest of being an equal opportunity ankle-biter, and for those who do embrace the "Bush Lied" meme, I offer the following: go to Juan Cole's blog here and scroll down to his post titled "Bush Administration Lie about Iraq". Cole is a respected academic and Bush critic. In this post, he accuses Bush of lying by omission, specifically of withholding certain information from Congress in the run-up to the war. Unfortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), Cole makes a couple of assumptions that may or may not be warranted in coming to his conclusion. Cole, to his credit, has excellent academic credentials and has both agreed with and sharply disagreed with Bush when he has felt it appropriate. Very pragmatic, a rare commodity these days.

So, there it is, something for all persuasions to chew on in debating whether or not "Bush Lied" and perhaps interestingly but not necessarily more importantly, is the "Bush Lied" mantra a campaign, a coordinated project of the DNC? Flame away!
 

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The DNC is simply following the lead of the Nazis of 70 years ago when they discovered that if you repeat something often enough it will gain currency; if you can create enough smoke, someone will believe there must be a fire somewhere. The Dems seem to have a primeval need to be in the spotlight, even though they have no constructive ideas to offer.

IMO, "Lie After Lie After Lie After Lie" is simply Teddy Kennedy's way of hyping his soon-to-be-published autobiography.
 
Diogenes said:
The DNC is simply following the lead of the Nazis of 70 years ago when they discovered that if you repeat something often enough it will gain currency; if you can create enough smoke, someone will believe there must be a fire somewhere. The Dems seem to have a primeval need to be in the spotlight, even though they have no constructive ideas to offer.

IMO, "Lie After Lie After Lie After Lie" is simply Teddy Kennedy's way of hyping his soon-to-be-published autobiography.
You're not suggesting that the Republicans don't play that card as well, are you?
 
Bush said that the CIA gave him inaccurate information, in other words, they lied to him. He propogated that lie by starting an unnecessary war based on that lie.

When someone lies to you and you repeat that lie to someone else, then you are a liar also. BUSH IS A LIAR, PERIOD.He is also a deserter.
 
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
In 2006, and 2008, we are going to hear so much of this about both sides that it will be next to impossible to pick a potential winner out of the media hype that we will be inundated with.
I think the biggest lie is the one politicians tell themselves, that the American public is gullible, has a short memory, and inadequate intellect to sift the truth from all the many varying opinions that are being touted as truth.
Wait, that may not be a lie......:(
 
If the President did tell a lie it was for the good of the UNITED STATES

that he did so,because he is our leader of the free wourld and he will take care of us all,as well of GREAT BRITAIN.

so there u are.

mikeey
 
mikeey said:
If the President did tell a lie it was for the good of the UNITED STATES

that he did so,because he is our leader of the free wourld and he will take care of us all,as well of GREAT BRITAIN.

so there u are.

mikeey
Don't bet your retirement years on that....or the future of your children and grandchildren.
 
Bush said that the CIA gave him inaccurate information, in other words, they lied to him. He propogated that lie by starting an unnecessary war based on that lie.

OldnWise, as written, there is a logical inconsistency in that statement. If I receive information that I believe to be true and repeat that information to you, still believing it to be true, and later find out that the info was false, did I lie to you? No, I did not. I was mis-informed and repeated that mis-information. But it wasn't a lie.

Your premise is correct if and only if Bush knew that the info given to him by the CIA was untrue. And that remains to be seen.

I tend to lean toward the "lie of omission" school of thought. I think it is entirely possible that Bush omitted or minimized from his case those aspects of the CIA-provided intelligence that shaded the probabilities from a "slam dunk certainty" in George Tenet's words to more realistic probabilities that the intelligence was at the very least, risky.
 
oldreliable67 said:
OldnWise, as written, there is a logical inconsistency in that statement. If I receive information that I believe to be true and repeat that information to you, still believing it to be true, and later find out that the info was false, did I lie to you? No, I did not. I was mis-informed and repeated that mis-information. But it wasn't a lie.

Your premise is correct if and only if Bush knew that the info given to him by the CIA was untrue. And that remains to be seen.

I tend to lean toward the "lie of omission" school of thought. I think it is entirely possible that Bush omitted or minimized from his case those aspects of the CIA-provided intelligence that shaded the probabilities from a "slam dunk certainty" in George Tenet's words to more realistic probabilities that the intelligence was at the very least, risky.
I'm still trying to figure out why some people believe that the CIA is totally inept in their response to 911...but all of a sudden they are a reputable, non-fallible organization when they have concerns over the credibility of their own intelligence in their response to Iraq...
 
Im trying to figure out how a man would possibly think he could "lie" about WMDs and not get caught.

if he NEW HE WAS LYING.......and NEW THERE WERE NO WMDS, dont you think he might have done a better job of comming up with responses to the accusations?

its not like we would have never found out there were no WMDs.

fact is, the president used the same intell that the administration before him used. NO ONE LIED.

I personally still believe the weapons were moved to syria while the UN screwed around with countless, pointless resolutions.

and there are a lot of dead Kurds that support my theory.
 
ProudAmerican said:
Im trying to figure out how a man would possibly think he could "lie" about WMDs and not get caught.

if he NEW HE WAS LYING.......and NEW THERE WERE NO WMDS, dont you think he might have done a better job of comming up with responses to the accusations?

its not like we would have never found out there were no WMDs.

fact is, the president used the same intell that the administration before him used. NO ONE LIED.

I personally still believe the weapons were moved to syria while the UN screwed around with countless, pointless resolutions.

and there are a lot of dead Kurds that support my theory.
It would've also been pretty easy to "accidentally" drop a few barrels of WMD in the middle of the desert and come back two months later and say "Look what we've found!"...Could've diverted the whole issue...

But that would be dishonest...something this President has not been proven to be...
 
To declare war on a country knowing full well that lives are going to be lost on both sides, you need to be pretty sure you have the correct facts before taking any action.

If it wasn't a lie then it's incompetence. The man who makes the decision takes responsibility. If the "facts" were wrong, the man responsible must accept these recriminations. Let's face it, us mortals would have lost our job.
 
Mancunian said:
To declare war on a country knowing full well that lives are going to be lost on both sides, you need to be pretty sure you have the correct facts before taking any action.

If it wasn't a lie then it's incompetence. The man who makes the decision takes responsibility. If the "facts" were wrong, the man responsible must accept these recriminations. Let's face it, us mortals would have lost our job.
the problem with this is that you are hinging the entire war in Iraq on ONE THING.
we went there for more than one reason. all those reasons were laid out before the entire world on more than one ocassion.
so if we went in for a dozen reasons, and ONE of those turned out to be incorrect.....is the war still justified?

I think it is.

so we never found WMDs. big freakin deal. theres still a list of valid reasons so long it would take days for us to discuss them all.
 
ProudAmerican said:
the problem with this is that you are hinging the entire war in Iraq on ONE THING.
we went there for more than one reason. all those reasons were laid out before the entire world on more than one ocassion.
so if we went in for a dozen reasons, and ONE of those turned out to be incorrect.....is the war still justified?

I think it is.

so we never found WMDs. big freakin deal. theres still a list of valid reasons so long it would take days for us to discuss them all.

Yeah, maybe. But that one thing is the most important. The other reasons for going are/were illegal. The premise of regime change is illegal, the premise of enforcing democracy for the good of the middle east is illegal etc etc. You couldn't gain the support of the population based on all the other reasons. The only way of convincing the public to back the war and also the only legal reason, unless you know of any others, was that Iraq was a threat to the security of other nations. So if there was no threat and the reasons for going were for some other reason then this war is illegal.
 
Diogenes said:
The DNC is simply following the lead of the Nazis of 70 years ago ...
Bam! Godwin's law is affirmed in two, count 'em two posts.
 
cnredd said:
I'm still trying to figure out why some people believe that the CIA is totally inept in their response to 911...but all of a sudden they are a reputable, non-fallible organization when they have concerns over the credibility of their own intelligence in their response to Iraq...
Have you got a better source for this sort of info than the US Intel Community?
Are you implying that Team Bush had/has some better source of info?

Whence the need and urge to exaggerate w/ phrases like "non-fallible organization?"
 
Mancunian said:
Yeah, maybe. But that one thing is the most important. The other reasons for going are/were illegal. The premise of regime change is illegal, the premise of enforcing democracy for the good of the middle east is illegal etc etc. You couldn't gain the support of the population based on all the other reasons. The only way of convincing the public to back the war and also the only legal reason, unless you know of any others, was that Iraq was a threat to the security of other nations. So if there was no threat and the reasons for going were for some other reason then this war is illegal.
how about violating the peace treaty from the last gulf war?
how about the countless resolutions that were not followed?
how about firing at our planes on an almost daily basis?
how about the countless crimes against humanity? (torture rooms, rape rooms, film footage of people being thrown off buildings!!)

all LEGAL , legitimate, and valid reasons for going to war.

not to mention the proven support of terrorist organizations. abu nidal found refuge in Iraq.

and your premise that there was no threat is an opinion only. I submit that before 9-11, there was no threat from Al Queda. If you wait untill there is a threat.....well....that kind of defeats the purpose now doesnt it?
 
ProudAmerican said:
Im trying to figure out how a man would possibly think he could "lie" about WMDs and not get caught.

if he NEW HE WAS LYING.......and NEW THERE WERE NO WMDS, dont you think he might have done a better job of comming up with responses to the accusations?
If they knew that there were WMD, perhaps we'd made more of an effort to secure those sites against looting than we did.

ProudAmerican said:
I personally still believe the weapons were moved to syria ...
The team of experts we sent to Iraq says this is improbable.

ProudAmerican said:
and there are a lot of dead Kurds that support my theory.
They provide no support whatsoever for your theory that Hussein shipped WMD to Syria.
 
Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
how about violating the peace treaty from the last gulf war?
How was the "peace" violated?

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
how about the countless resolutions that were not followed?
None of them authorized military force except 678 which was in response to the Kuwait invasion.

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
how about firing at our planes on an almost daily basis?
We flew over 2000 sorties dropping 600 bombs on pre-selected targets under the cover of "no-fly" zone enforcement and you say they don't have a right to defend themselves!

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
how about the countless crimes against humanity? (torture rooms, rape rooms, film footage of people being thrown off buildings!!)
No one is argueing this didn't happen. But have you noticed the reports that the US backed Iraqi police squads are doing their fare share of torture as well?

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
all LEGAL , legitimate, and valid reasons for going to war.
No they are not. Check out article 51 of the UN Charter. There are only two ways to legally attack another country, and we had niether.

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
not to mention the proven support of terrorist organizations. abu nidal found refuge in Iraq.
Care to post a link?

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
and your premise that there was no threat is an opinion only. I submit that before 9-11, there was no threat from Al Queda. If you wait untill there is a threat.....well....that kind of defeats the purpose now doesnt it?
I submit that a country that barely has running water and electricity is not a threat to anyone.
 
ProudAmerican said:
the problem with this is that you are hinging the entire war in Iraq on ONE THING.
we went there for more than one reason. all those reasons were laid out before the entire world on more than one ocassion.
so if we went in for a dozen reasons, and ONE of those turned out to be incorrect.....is the war still justified?
I think it is.
so we never found WMDs. big freakin deal. theres still a list of valid reasons so long it would take days for us to discuss them all.
Basically America agreed to go to war because we thought were defending ourselves. We didn't agree to go to war for the sake of some government sponsored social engineering project on the other side of the globe.

Wolfowitz said there was only one reason that could justify putting "American kids' lives at risk...on the scale we did..." and that reason was the threat to the US from Iraq. That was composed of 1) weapons of mass destruction 2) support for terrorism and 3) the connection between the first two.

All the rest of the reasons may be compelling to bleeding heart liberals and idealists, and others who favor government sponsored social engineering experiments, but they do not equate to compelling national interests of the United States.

But what do you know? It turns out that Iraq was unlikely to attck the US directly or by proxy for the foreseeable future, and Iraq was not in cahoots w/ aQ.
 
ProudAmerican said:
Simon,
he had them. there is no question about that whatsoever. HE MURDERED PEOPLE WITH THEM.
Yeah, 10-15 years before the date in question.
ProudAmerican said:
so the question isnt if he had them, the question is, what did he do with them.
The question re WMD is whether or not he had them in 2002-2003 not in 1988.
 
Mancunian said:
To declare war on a country knowing full well that lives are going to be lost on both sides, you need to be pretty sure you have the correct facts before taking any action.

If it wasn't a lie then it's incompetence. The man who makes the decision takes responsibility. If the "facts" were wrong, the man responsible must accept these recriminations. Let's face it, us mortals would have lost our job.

and yet how many other countries thought the same thing as Bush
didn't the UN think the same?
 
ProudAmerican said:
so the question isnt if he had them, the question is, what did he do with them.
Well, we haven't looked under the mosques yet... :mrgreen:
 
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