To me, the mainstream media is almost as culpable as the Bushies in leading this country into the godforsaken Iraq war. They cheerleaded Team Bush as they ran the ball down the field. What’s worse, they still make excuse after excuse after crap-filled excuse for their failures that continue to this day.
Frontline has an interesting series on the Presidency and the press, and this segment in Part I is worth watching.
But they really haven’t learned. Listen to this interview of the NY Times’ Michael Gordon, who was a water-carrier for WMD in Iraq now express surprise that his reporting is suspect when his just-written story about supposed Iranian involvement in Iraq runs into credibility issues.
The media’s coverage is simply not to be trusted. Either via brute force from the administration, or as a product of cozy cocktail club relations with those in power, the press has been a valuable tool for the current administration to lead Americans into danger and death.
(I should also point out that the events of the last few years have really soured me on the press’ arguments for things like source protection. To me, it seems like journalists are asking for special rights a private citizen doesn’t have the luxury of having)
Judith Miller is not a martyr. She’s barely a journalist. Going to jail to protect your WH friends who gave you bad information does not give you credibility. It only makes you look like a gullible hack.
the historical revisionism marches on….
ALL OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE UN THOUGHT SADDAM HAD WMD’S, all of them.
It wasn’t up to the UN inspectors to prove they weren’t there, it was up to Saddam. The only reason we know with such surety that they WEREN’T there is because we invaded the god-forsaken place and went over it with a fine-tooth comb.
Please stop flacking for MM with such blatant historical bullshit…
While I agree with the general meaning of this post, a crucial point is missed. The “mainstream media” is a term applied to the corporate entities that broadcast and publish information to the American people. These entities are owned and managed by the same people who put Bush/Cheney and the Republicans into political office. They are all part of the same team; the team is owned by the American ruling class.
That they should work in concert is hardly surprising. In particular, when the matter at hand is one which presents opportunities to enrich themselves with tax-payers’ money, to consolidate and extend their political power and to weaken or destroy real and potential rivals, they will always, always, always, always work as if they were guided by a single hand.
The 9/11 attacks presented the American ruling class with just such an opportunity. That these people used it for their own enrichment and aggrandizement is just one of the reasons that they all ought to be stripped of their wealth and power and put to work cleaning up the gardens they have defiled.
You keep saying historical revisionism Pedo, but I don’t think that means what you think it means.
Do you hear your stupid argument? It isn’t up to the inspectors, it’s up to Hussein. Ok. Hussein said he didn’t have them, case closed? No, inspectors have to verify he doesn’t have them. So they go out and inspect sites and hunt down leads and check those out.
Of course all those pesky European countries wanted the inpection process to finish. The UN inspectors said all the US leads and intel was garbage. Which is probably why Bush was in such a hurry to invade before the inspection process finished. Guess what, Hussein didn’t have WMDs, and that means Bush flushed his administration’s credibility down the toilet and damaged US standing and credibility in the world for years to come.
Pidge you keep accusing me of saying things that “don’t mean what you think it means”, and I keep having slap you down.
Well, yes, it means exactly what I said. Oliver is trying to make it sound as if the media was just making shit up to support Bush. But most of the free world and the UN agreed with all the things that bush was saying, though not going so far as to do anything about it.
This from the UN
Further recalling that its resolution 687 (1991) imposed obligations on Iraq as a necessary step for achievement of its stated objective of restoring international peace and security in the area,
Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such weapons, their components and production facilities and locations, as well as all other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material,…..
http://www.un.int/usa/sres-iraq.htm
We could NEVER fullly inspect that country withou having complete control of it. The leftists forget that…or were too stupid to realize it in the first place.
pedro, please, you’re not convincing anyone by repeating the same thing you’ve been saying for years.
It only becomes less and less true, and you look more and more out of touch.
Yes, a lot of people believed he had weapons, but even at that, “most of the world” is currently laughing at us for falling for the suckers trap that is Iraq.
you and your manhood will feel slighted if we leave? we already won years, ago - remember the aircraft carrier.
Whether the invasion was right or wrong, since 2003 a different war has started there, and it ain’t our business anymore.
and 60 something percent of the country agrees with me. We’ll leave real slow so as not to chafe the asses of americans like you pedro, but we are leaving Iraq like it or not.
let that sink in.
“We could NEVER fullly inspect that country withou having complete control of it. The leftists forget that…or were too stupid to realize it in the first place.”
Funny, even if you argue the finest semantics, no WMD threat has been identified.
but the huge non WMD stockpiles (artillery and antitank shells) that we didn’t sieze, destroy, or GUARD are being used as IEDs against us.
I can say whatever I like,
it is planning like that costs lives.
—-
Dear US Soldier, we also have noticed your CinC is a dolt. He will be replaced and your sacrifice will be honored with leadership equal to it.
Signed, a grateful America
—-
you people are truly dumbasses…
Saddam HAD WMD’s. Saddam USED WMD’s .
If the world is laughing, it is the nervous laugh of someone who knows they dodged a bullet. Saddam could easily have reconstituted a weapons program within days of another suspension of inspections. All the while the inspecting organization was riddled with graft and kickbacks.
It is blind ignorance to claim that Iraq was not a threat to world peace, even the UN states that in their resolutions.
We let the Chamberlain’s of the world have their way once….with devastating results.
Now the democrats are going to try to have it both ways again with a resolution that the war is “bad” but without the intestinal fortitude to back it up by cutting off the funding in spite of the fact that “60% of americans agree” with them.
Bravo, democrat leadership in action…you should be very proud.
Guess what Pedo, we HAVE WMDs. So saying Hussein had them is stupid. He didn’t have them when we invaded.
Quoting UN resolutions does you no good when the UN didn’t back our invasion. The UN inspectors did not say Hussein had WMDs, and their inspectors said our Intel was crap. Of the European countries you keep pointing at, none of them were for invading before the inspection regimen was completed. Just George.
Funny you say Chamberlain when talking about a toothless country that could barely keep control within it’s own borders, let alone threaten its neighbors. Especially when there were more dangerous enemies to deal with.
Good point per usual pedromd07. If we let the Chamberlain leftists have their way, some greedy, wildly misguided bastard might invade a country that was not any threat at all. And then justify it with a string of pathetic excuses. Those who fail to learn from history and all that.
Except that Iraq was contained, was not a threat. After the Clinton administration’s strikes and including the flyovers started by the first Bush administration, Hussein was no threat. There were no WMDs in Iraq, certainly not ones that would produce the “mushroom clouds” alleged by the Bushies.
Pedro, at a certain point one must cede spin to historical fact. I’ve conceded that it hasn’t been a grand conspiracy by the NFL and it is a fact that the Redskins have stunk it up for essentially the last 16 years. I let go of my belief because the facts say otherwise.
You should do the same. Iraq had no WMDs, and the intelligence the world saw was faulty yet hyped by the Bush admin to make the case for war. Our president made the final decision to invade and occupy Iraq, and the American people consented because we collectively believed the CiC when he said Iraq was a threat that had WMDs. I personally believed Iraq might very well have weapons, but the answer was continued containment and inspections rather than invasion and occupation for the very same reason why the majority of people - Democrat, Republican, and Independent - now see the folly of our action.
Take comfort then, Oliver, in the existence of the Detroit Lions and the Arizona Cardinals. As long as they exist, Washington will look like a first class championship organization.
Take heart Nixon fans.
I completely concede that we didn’t find wmds.
My point is, the world did not KNOW that until we went in and looked for ourselves.
Leadership is about making decisions based on the intel you have right now. The entire world believed that Iraq had the weapons, and we know that he was willing to use them. That we didn’t receive backing by the UN is no suprise in light of the graft that was going on there at the time.
The Iraqis did NOT have WMDs, the intel WAS faulty. But we couldn’t KNOW that unless we invaded.
Oliver I would completely agree with the left today if they would only say, as you have pointed out in a later post, that we were mistaken. That doesn’t mean you go back in time and pretend that the intel for the entire western world didn’t say he had the weapons. Bush’s point in invading was that you could NOT contain a single shell of Sarin.
If we had continued “containment”, and Iraq went ahead and built more WMD’s and then used them against the west, we would be having the same discussion in reverse.
Saddam was a threat. It is not all that clear that simply saying “he doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction today” would be enough to eliminate that threat.
But thanks for that rational answer.
Your problem Pedo is that you fail to understand that the intelligence was known to be faulty. Much of it was proven wrong. Yellowcake anyone? It’s why I keep mentioning UN inspectors calling all US leads garbage. Most of the other current intelligence all came from KNOWN unreliable sources. The rest was out of date. So, tell me, if you know your information is faulty, and you base your decisions on it, who’s at fault, you or the information?
Europe knew the intel was dubious, all wanted the UN inspections to finish, most chose not to invade or support our invasion.
Also, Saddam wasn’t a threat to us or his neighbors.
Yes, Pedo, rational answers, try it some time.
It’s both Pedro. The intel was mistaken AND the books were cooked. The admin took the base of information that suggested there might be WMD and hyped it to certainty. Bush never said we were invading over a sarin shell. We were invading to prevent “mushroom clouds”.
Saddam was a threat to nobody but the people of Iraq, certainly not to us and certainly not the level of threat in 2002-3 as this organization called Al Qaeda.
we only KNEW it was faulty after we invaded.
Now the leftists want to revise history with the essentially perfect intel that we have TODAY.
I understand the american left really has no choice. If Iraq goes well, the democrats will lose seats again.
Check Christopher Hitchens for the whole “yellowcake” was wrong meme.
To continue to say that most did not support the invasion, while ignoring the out and out bribery of high officials in many of those european countries is flat out dishonesty akin to saying that a mafia slaying in broad daylight with 50 people standing around had “no witnesses”….
Dopey, we knew the intel was bad before we invaded. Remember, UN inspectors saying US leads were garbage, so we didn’t know where any were. Yellowcake was known to be based on forged documents before invasion. Etc.
If you are using the mafia analogy, Pedo, you have to take into account that the new Boss (the US and/or Bush buddy CHalabi) replaced the corruption network with one that is at least 5 times more effective. $10.1 billion under Hussein for the entire country for 5 years, $30 million a day every day on just oil flowing out of the ports. That is at least $10 billion/year and doesn’t include the rest of the country where the corruption and theft is just as bad. In other words we replaced a corrupt system with one that is more corrupt. Intentionally.
Sorry Pedro, but there is no way to prove a negative, so how was Saddam supposed to “prove” he didn’t have WMDs? As the weapon inspectors looked at more and more places and didn’t find anything, Bush realized he had to start the war quickly before his justification collapsed around him.
It was required that they positively demonstrate destroying known WMDs, not a “negative”.
How you can trust the UN intel is beyond me. Both the inspectors and the UN leadership itself was so ridden with graft as to be almost unconscionable.
Saddam had the ability, and in fact had sites in place to begin manufacturing small amounts of chemical weapons up until we invaded.
SG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003
a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for
intelligence operations. The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform
from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts, but we have no indications this was
planned. (See Annex A.)
• ISG has no evidence that IIS Directorate of Criminology (M16) scientists were producing CW or BW agents
in these laboratories. However, sources indicate that M16 was planning to produce several CW agents
including sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, and Sarin.
• Exploitations of IIS laboratories, safe houses, and disposal sites revealed no evidence of CW-related research
or production, however many of these sites were either sanitized by the Regime or looted prior to OIF. Inter-
views with key IIS offi cials within and outside of M16 yielded very little information about the IIS’ activities
in this area.
• The existence, function, and purpose of the laboratories were never declared to the UN.
• The IIS program included the use of human subjects for testing purposes.
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/pdf/duelfer3_aa.pdf
As far as the yellowcake “fraud”, I point you to Hitchen’s extensive explaination
had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title (”Case Closed”) of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention.
http://www.slate.com/id/2148555
Did you even read what you cited, Pedo? Scroll up and look at phrases such as “no evidence” and “no indication this was planned” which pretty much pepper what you posted.
Then read some more of the ISG report which concludes Hussein destroyed his CW munitions and precursors and samples and stockpiles and such in the 90’s.
Next, where does Hitchens address “Yellowcake Fraud” which I assume relates to the SOTU claims made by Bush? Instead he focuses on Wilson.
Yea, scroll down and look for phrases like “sanitized” and “looted prior to OIF”…I’m sure he was just keeping secret labs to design his own brand of easter-egg dye. Did you even read the especially chilling the “program included the use of human subjects for testing purposes”?
How much different would the american people feel if THAT were the headline for that report in the New York Times.
Hitchens demonstrates that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellowcake from Niger…which was my point.
Yes, Pedo, what does that mean? What could “either sanitized” (which they have no evidence of) or “LOOTED”, mean?
And dumbass, read what you cite. You are drawing conclusions wildly at variance with what the ISG found. These were labs maintained by Iraqi Secret Service and were used to develop chemicals and poisons for INTELLIGENCE PURPOSES. And specifically NOT FOR CHEMICAL OR BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS. DOH!
And, I believe it was you in a recent blather episode where you accused people of basing arguments on emotion rather than facts and evidence. Is it chilling that Iraqi secret service used chemicals and poisons on other Iraqis? Yes. Does it have anything to do with your argument about WMDs? No.
So the “Yellowcake Fraud” is not about Bush making the claim in the State of the Union? How did it ever come up?
Oh great point pidge. I guess a gallon of INTELLIGENCE sarin can’t hurt you…
The yellowcake “fraud” came up when bush quoted a british intel document claiming that saddam was after uranium…which, as is well documented by Hitchens, he was.
It is amazing that you can just ignore fact after fact…but given that something like 80% of democrats don’t even HOPE we will suceed in Iraq, not suprising.
I see, and now give us those facts Pedo. The truth shall set you free. Where in that report does it say Sarin as you state. I am pretty sure Sarin is classified as a Chemical Weapon(let me check a second— yes it is). The report says Chemical and Biological weapons, you may recall, were not produced at those labs. You just tried to make an emotional appeal devoid of facts.
And that British Intelligence document was based on f_rg_d d_cum_nts (fill in the blanks to find out) and unsubstantiated evidence. Which is why the CIA wouldn’t stand behind the claim and asked it be removed from the speech.
Hitchen’s point is that Iraq did have a delegation in Niger and his conclusion is that was proof positive Iraq tried to buy Uranium. The rest of his article is blather about Valerie Plame.