eclecticism

August 4th, 2004 |

Today’s must-read: They Knew…

Despite the whitewash, we now know that the Bush administration was warned before the war that its Iraq claims were weak.
If desperation is ugly, then Washington, D.C. today is downright hideous. As the 9/11 Commission recently reported, there was “no credible evidence” of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Similarly, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. With U.S. casualties mounting in an election year, the White House is grasping at straws to avoid being held accountable for its dishonesty. The whitewash already has started: In July, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee released a controversial report blaming the CIA for the mess. The panel conveniently refuses to evaluate what the White House did with the information it was given or how the White House set up its own special team of Pentagon political appointees (called the Office of Special Plans) to circumvent well-established intelligence channels. And Vice President Dick Cheney continues to say without a shred of proof that there is “overwhelming evidence” justifying the administration’s pre-war charges. But as author Flannery O’Conner noted, “Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” That means no matter how much defensive spin spews from the White House, the Bush administration cannot escape the documented fact that it was clearly warned before the war that its rationale for invading Iraq was weak. Top administration officials repeatedly ignored warnings that their assertions about Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and connections to al Qaeda were overstated. In some cases, they were told their claims were wholly without merit, yet they went ahead and made them anyway. Even the Senate report admits that the White House “misrepresented” classified intelligence by eliminating references to contradictory assertions. In short, they knew they were misleading America. And they did not care.

p>The full article has many bits of information that have been known for a long time — at least to those of us who have been paying any amount of attention — but the authors do a wonderful job of summarizing it all in one neat package, extensively linked with source articles.

How anybody can continue to put any stock in the Bush administration is just mind boggling to me.

(via MeFi)

iTunes: “Stare and Stare” by MC 900 Ft Jesus from the album One Step Ahead of the Spider (1994, 6:59).

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2 Responses to “They Knew”

brady j. frey Says:
August 5th, 2004 at 10:19 am

Agreed — there’s a lot of people low on the IQ totem poll… or simply have professional/financial interests that would more benefit a Bush White House for them.

I saw Ben Affleck speak before the democat convention on video a few weeks back and he made a similar statement, followed by: “I saved over a 1.5 million in taxes last year… does that seem fair to YOU?”

Tim Who? Says:
August 5th, 2004 at 11:19 am

They knew, they always knew. They used the fear in America to start the war and used the taxpaying middle class to pay for it. Those below middle class also paid for it by loss of benefits. Don’t worry those kids didn’t need a hot lunch.

The rich didn’t pay for anything in fact they got money back in the form of a tax break. The large corp. hit pay dirt and were (and still are) able to rape the US taxpayers for BILLIONS. And it continues. Hallbillion continues to rake in profits so fast they can’t even keep an accurate count. The major gas companies in the US are crying about the high price of oil and yet if you check you’ll see they also have record profits. How hard can life be when your quarterly profits are measured in billions? Hallbillion employees stay in million dollar hotel rooms while young men and women fight for their lives and bigger halbillions profits.

When will the maddness end?

Nov. can’t get here fast enough for me!