John Hawkins has a post up claiming to de-bunk the following anti-war myths:
1) George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
2) A study released in March of 2003 by a British medical journal, the Lancet, showed that 100,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the US invasion.
3) The Bush Administration claimed Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
4) The war in Iraq was actually planned by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz back in 1998 at a think tank called the Project for the New American Century.
5) The war on terror has nothing to do with Iraq.
6) Saddam Hussein had no ties to terrorism.
7) Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al-Qaeda.
8) The Downing Street Memo proves Bush lied to the American people about the war.
I say claiming, because I haven’t read it yet myself, and I won’t get to it until later, as I am still working on the site transition. I did think it would provide good fodder for today’s inevitable flame war. So, go read it, and have at it in the comments.
Jorge
Not much there. The great debunking about the WMD lie boils down to, “alot of Democrats and world leaders said there were WMD’s as well.” Of course, the definition of a lie that we are going with here is about as strict as Clinton’s definition of “sexual relations.”
As my preacher is fond of saying, “Half truth, whole lie.” What’s funny is that the moment of truth for the WMD lie scenario was the 2004 elections and the American people gave Bush a pass. I’m not sure why anyone who supports Bush would still bring it up since all it does is give folks like me a chance to say things like, “half truth. Whole lie.”
I don’t think that Bush’s numbers on Iraq are so low because the American people all of the sudden came to the conclusion that GW lied. His numbers are low because people are dying, the resistance is as strong as ever and it is evident that Al Qaeda is perfectly capable of orchestrating attacks both in Iraq and in western democracies.
I am curious about what will happen if the rumors are true and we begin pulling our troops out next summer. To me, it seems like a compleltely politically motivated move set to coincide with the 2006 elections.
Jason
He may have had some credible arguments but the column felt like a recitation of Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity talking points.
Hokie
Jorge: Yeah, I’d say the difference on WMDs was that most of the Democrats in question said something to the extent of “It would be a very bad thing if Saddam were to rebuild WMDs and we don’t have any reason to doubt at this point that he wants to” and what the Bush Administration representatives (in particular, Donnie Rumsfeld) said “We know where the weapons are” and claimed to have proof of their existence, not just good reason to suspect it.
The most egregious, I thought, had to do with ties between al-Qaeda and Saddam, when Hawkins claimed al-Zarqawi being in Iraq implies ties between the two groups. There is absolutely no evidence that Zarqawi was a member of al-Qaeda until then, and hell, there’s no evidence bin Laden took up Zarqawi on his offers of an alliance (only given within the last year or so) in the form of monetary or military support.
Most of the rest is rhetorical dodging or strawmen…I don’t know of anyone who’s seriously suggested Saddam had no links to terrorism, period.
JPS
No offense, John, but why does this go under Republican Stupidity before you’ve read it? Do you see it as stupid just based on what you’ve quoted so far?
JPS
P.S., in re “good fodder for today’s inevitable flame war”
Actually, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think your “Sorry, Drudge” post may turn out to be the greatest flame war post I’ve seen yet. Much better than a post that actually tries to set one off. Show examples of over-the-top inflammatory “jokes” from each side, then sit back and grin….
I predict 200 comments before it’s all over.
srv
Just to start, more of the “Hillary said it too” stuff. Many Dems are late comers to the “lie” story (yes, as opportunists). But I remember marching in Feb. 2003 with over 10000 other people, and “lies” was a persistent theme throughout that crowd (whether they were Dems, or whatever, I don’t know or care).
Aluminum tubes, yellow-cake, bio-trucks, bio-drones, 11 years of UN Inspectors finding nothing, Cheney saying in 2002 “they have reconstituted their nuclear weapons”, 911/Saddam in the same sentence (over and over and over), “Saddams” Anser al-Salam (operating under a US non-fly zone), Cheney quoting the defector son-in-laws on everything except their claim that he’d gotten rid of the weapons after 1991. And on and on.
Today we know alot more. Office of Special Plans for one. But the pre-Invasion anit-war crowd was questioning ALL those things before the war started, not after.
John Cole
JPS- It was supposed to go under politics. I have a scroll bar wheel and was scrolling down the page to push publish, and I guess I scrolled the tab accidentally. Fixed.
gratefulcub
1) George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Probably just believed his own spin, and then thought it was fine to overstate, remove caveats, etc. They thought the weapons were there, so I don’t think he lied.
3) The Bush Administration claimed Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
They never once claimed that. What they did do, was put 9/11, SH, Iraq, UBL together in every speech. They kept lumping it all together until most Americans (70%) believed they were all related. They used American stupidity to misinform without ever saying what they wanted to be believed.
4) The war in Iraq was actually planned by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz back in 1998 at a think tank called the Project for the New American Century.
They didn’t PLAN it, but they wrote about and supported it.
5) The war on terror has nothing to do with Iraq.
It does now.
6) Saddam Hussein had no ties to terrorism.
Of course he had ties to terrorism. But, he had few ties that are much less relevant than most ME leaders. SH talked big about sending money to Palestine, but that was for internal popularity. It doesn’t make him a dangerous terrorist.
7) Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al-Qaeda.
Of course he had ties to Al-Quaeda. I probably have 6 degrees of separation ties to Al-Quaeda. But, he wasn’t in cahoots with AQ in any way.
8) The Downing Street Memo proves Bush lied to the American people about the war.
Key word-PROVES. Obviously, it proves nothing. But, it fits perfectly with a reasonable view of the chain of events. It is just more evidence that all points in the same direction.
My whole point is that everyone yells and screams ‘He lied’ or ‘He’s a saint’ and no one seems to be interested with the gray area in the middle that contains the truth.
It is easy to set up a straw man about the anti/war pro/war extremes and knock them down. Just because w never said that Iraq planned 9/11, doesn’t mean they didn’t do anything wrong.
foolishmortal
John, I would suggest reading the piece before removing the designation of “Republican Stupidity”. I think your mousewheel knows something you don’t.
JoshA
My favorite debunk was of the study that said 100,000 were dead. I thought the original argument—that the study used a lot of guesswork—was fairly accurate.
But RWN couldn’t stop at that, so instead quotes a globalsecurity.org quoted study. However, that study was done in October 2003. You know, I’m guessing maybe a couple of civilians might have died between then and now.
That one was at least original. The rest was the same talking points BS, which has been pretty well covered.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I like the way Stephen Hayes is cited as an authority there. That’s a little like Michael Moore presenting “evidence” from a book by Alexander Cockburn.
Rick
And I like the way Hayes’ reporting gets dissected and disproved.
Cordially…
BinkyBoy
Same apologist reasoning used to justify a failed invasion.
Put up or shut up applies very well to that apologist.
Darrell
Ah yes, the WMD “lie”. Yes, most Democrats and world leaders with sophisticated intelligence agencies all agreed Saddam had them, so it’s more than a bit dishonest of you Jorge under those circumstances to call what appears to be sincere beliefs into a ‘lie’.. no parsing of words needed
More importantly, Iraq had never accounted for the tons and tons of KNOWN wmd’s which they had ADMITTED to UNSCOM that they had.. admitted known WMD’s, then Saddam ejects weapons inspectors out of the country. Known WMD’s were never accounted for (as required by Iraq’s ’91 terms of surrender). Oh, and the network of ‘dual use’ manufacturing found.. Nah, means nothing to the dishonest left because ‘Bush lied people died’.. and that’s all there is to it
Jimmy Jazz
And meanwhile, Operation Cut and Run Before the ’06 Elections proceeds apace.
Run Away! Run Away!
The Disenfranchised Voter
Let me start off by stating that I actually agreed with the Iraq War, at first. I believed in what the Administration said and I also believed that we should have never propped up Saddam in the first place. I even spoke badly about the protestors and said they were only protesting because they didn’t like Bush. I later realized this was not the case.
Once I found out that the Bush Administration lied to get us to goto war I was completely against the war in Iraq. Never, EVER, should the President lie to the population in order to gather support for a war. It is inexcusable.
Bush and Company knew that the only way to gather enough support to goto war with Iraq would be to claim that Iraq was an imminent threat to us. So they decided to use fake documents ( fake documents ), imply falsehoods ( ), and outright lie ( http://lunaville.com/wmd/billmon.aspx ). Of course this worked in the short run, but as anyone can now see the support for the war has greatly fallen.
On top of all this, there is irrefutable proof that key figures in the Bush Administration KNEW that Saddam wasn’t even a threat to his neighbors, let alone the US.
Colin Powell – February 2001
“[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.”
Condoleezza Rice – July 2001
“We are able to keep arms from [Saddam]. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”
Clearly these two knew that Saddam didn’t have WMD and that he wasn’t a threat. I find it hard to believe that neither Powell, nor Rice expressed these opinions to the other members.
I just really don’t understand how anyone can actually think that the Administration really believed Saddam had WMD.
It is about time that the rest of you stopped living in denial.
They obviously lied to get the needed support for their ideological agenda.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Here is the “imply falsehoods” link:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102589/