UK Independent forum "How Bush lied" excerpt below: Nothing new but

it is an interesting forum. Below is cleaned up a bit - it is sort of what Free Republic could be if they had better posters! .. Still mostly rehash - posted here only for the record!

:-)
http://forums.indigital.co.uk/n/main.asp?webtag=id-argument&nav=messages&msg=22548&prettyurl=%2Fid%2Dargument%2Fmessages%2F%3Fmsg%3D22548

Some highlights:

Dem say: A list of Bush lies getting us into war (e.g. September 7, 2002; George Bush: "the International Atomic Energy Commision has published a report that claims that Iraq is six months away from developing an atomic weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need." (The report never existed).

A Freeper response: (Lies don't matter)"Clinton was impeached. nothing to do with sex....the fear in america is genuine and real. our security is everything,because without it, nothing else matters....as for iraq, like i said, followed the best intelligence we had..the idea of a democratic middle east...


Dem says: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32063-2004Mar28.html
BRADLEY : But even the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton, has said that the Bush administration pushed terrorism -- and I'm quoting here -- "farther to the back burner." Bob Woodward wrote a book, in which he had incredible access and interviewed the President of the United States. He quotes President Bush as saying that he didn't feel a sense of urgency about Osama bin Laden. Woodward wrote that "bin Laden was not the President's focus or that of his national security team." The former Secretary of the Treasury says it was not a priority; Mr. Clarke says it was not a priority. Richard Clarke said that -- talking about that meeting on September 12 th, said the President dragged him into a room, said, "I want you to find whether Iraq did this. He never said 'make it up,' but the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this. I said, 'Mr. President, we've done this before, we've been looking at this, we looked at it with an open mind, there's no connection.' And he came back and said, "Iraq, Saddam, find out if there's a connection,' and he said it in a very intimidating way."

RICE : I can tell you that when we met at Camp David not a single one of the President's principal advisors suggested that he do anything more than go after Afghanistan, and that's what we did.

But even if it is true that Bush and Co. followed the best intelligence they had (this is suspect if for no other reasons than all of the reports of lying and pressuring people to come up with "evidence" of the Iraqi threat), you cannot deny that the war in Iraq diverted resources from hunting down al-Qaeda. That alone demonstrates that Bush is not the best guarantor of our security.

Freeper reponse: Bush riding even higher in the publics' esteem now than he was a few weeks back as polls show.

Dem response: nothing to do with sex....Actually, it had everything to do with politics. The whole Paula Jones investigation (which led to Clinton's fabrications) was a witch-hunt to begin with. I'm not a Clinton fan, but you have to admit the whole thing was absurd.... the fear in america is genuine and real....I agree. Unfortunately, it is completely misplaced. The number of deaths due to terrorism in the last few years is small compared with, say auto crashes. Does that mean we shouldn't drive? No, only that we should keep an eye out and use common sense. The same for terrorism. There is no need for extreme panic. We need to keep an eye out and use common sense. Is it possible that a terrorist will get us anyway. Sure. It's also possible you will get hit by lightning..... our security is everything,because without it, nothing else matters...NO, NO, NO. Our freedoms and principles are everything, because without them we can never have security.

I'm sitting here in North Carolina and I feel deceived. Bush told us Iraq was connected to terrorism. His head of counter terrorism told him the opposite. Former members of his government are telling us Bush was preoccupied with Iraq from his first day in office. USA Today reported on Monday that crack troops with Arab experience were pulled from Afganistan to predeploy in Iraq and troops with Spanish expertise and no network on the ground were sent in to hunt OBL. I'm feeling deceived. And it doesn't help that the Bush Whitehouse immediately smears anyone who speaks out against their policies. If the President's position is solid, debate fair and win. I see the ad-homin attacks and I smell lies.


Freeper response: two thirds of aq leadership is dead or in prison now. read robin moore's book, hunt for bin laden. some 800 special forces, taking out over 10k aq and taliban. we don't need thousands, looking for one sick man, who in all reality is probably dead, for some time now. we have not been attacked for almost three years now,so, something is going right.....Cintons (Clarke)..only plan was to run, if anyone was killed or wounded, thus showing weakness, to an enemy who looks for such things. I'd rather see us err on the side of thinking somebody is more of a threat than they are than err on the side of thinking somebody is less of a threat than they are. .. Does anybody really believe that Bush "caring" more about terrorism is likely to have stopped 9-11 from happening?...The U.S.A. is the fount and wellspring of democracy. We have a responsibility to preserve democracy and freedom at any cost. A few lies here or there seem like fairly small potatoes in that cause.... What we really need at this point is to give our government more power and a freer hand until this crisis is over. The liberal fainthearts will likely never thank us for it, but after all, it's a thankless job.


Dem response:
>>He does his job as best he can, using every tool at his disposal.<<
That really isn't a nice way to talk about the President's advisors.

The rest of your post is a cynical joke right?

>>If Saddam Hussein turns out not to have had WMD, so what? He was an unstable, aggressive man who would sooner or later have posed a threat to our country.<<

Hahaha yeah thanks GWB for protecting us from the awesome Iraqi navy, army and airforce! Did you hear about the invasion plans for California found in Hussien's palace?

>>Politicians lie. Get over it. But he did it for the right reasons.<<

Perhaps you should ask yourself - if the goals were so noble why bother lying?

>>Clinton lied repeatedly. We reserve for ourselves the same privilege, thank you very much. <<

Yeah, I guess it's all square now. Clinton lied about an extra-marital blow-job, Bush lied and got 600 American soldiers and 10,000+ Iraqis and counting killed. It's all a matter of moral relativism.

>>The U.S.A. is the fount and wellspring of democracy. A few lies here or there seem like fairly small potatoes in that cause.<<

It's funny how few countries from your region get to drink from that "wellspring" then, huh? Look at central and south america, and the caribbean.

>>We are at war. At war with terrorists around the world, and, in a subtler fashion, at war with those whose vision of the future does not involve a victory over those terrorists. George Bush said, with a moral clarity remarkable in these wishy-washy days, "Either you're with us, or against us." That applies to everyone: to the Spanish people, who have unaccountably decided to resign the war on terrorism when they have suffered only a fraction of our losses; to the French and German governments, who refuse to support our drive to expunge fear from the world; and to fainthearts and liberals at home, who seek to undermine the work that our democratically chosen President is doing. If you're not with us, you're against us. Ponder what that may mean for you in the future. <<

There is so much bull in here I just had to quote it in full. Who the hell do you think you are talking about "expunging fear" from the world where you have just commited two campaigns which killed a minimum of 4 times as many innocent people as you lost on 9/11. Of course they have brown skin so they don't count right? Brown people feel no fear, they are just poorly dressed monkeys who get in the way of our bombs.

If your slogan of "With us or against us" sounds remarkably familiar, it's simply because it is the catch cry of extremists and fascists throughout the ages. Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Bush - these are men with remarkable "moral self-clarity" these are men that aren't "wishy washy", these are men you identify with and admire.