The Boy Who Cried Weapons Of Mass Destruction

They charge that liberals and the left are flip-floppers who change their views on an issue based on what's popular. Well, sometimes they do, but sometimes changing your views is warranted when it turns out you were wrong all along.
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Today we learned that Iran perhaps isn't as great a threat as the President had let us to believe. Are we supposed to be shocked? He insists they're still dangerous and still wants nukes, but his insinuations are just plain assumptions at this point. It is dangerous and counterproductive to make allegations based on assumptions. It destroys our credibility as a nation, not that we have any credibility anymore. We were wrong on Iraq, we were wrong on Iran. We are 0 and 2 in that region as of now.

Only six weeks ago, this President was invoking World War III, all the while his administration, and perhaps even the President himself. knew there was no immediate risk from that country. Europe, Russia and China aren't excited at all about pressuring an important oil producing country. They will be less so now it appears there is no immediate risk from Iran.

President Bush convinced us Iraq was an immediate threat. We went to war, a war we can't end, and we found out, everything was true. If not a liar, the President and his administration were incompetent and wrong. This is not the type of thing where an hypothesis is ok. We cannot run around being bellicose and threatening war because we have a hunch. The world is not going to stand besides a government that keeps overstating threats and is consistently wrong. How are we to be trusted? What happens when we're actually right? Will our allies around the world trust our judgment?

President Bush stands in front of the world today as the Boy who cried Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Bush: Iran Still Dangerous

"Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, Iran will be dangerous"
-George W. Bush

Replace Iran with President Bush and the statement still rings true.

Turning Up Empty

By the way, in case you've forgotten, here's what started the mess and it's quietly coming to an end, under the radar so no one will notice.

He Was Warned

If you want to know why people have such animosity towards this President, why I have it, it's not just the disastrous way he's lead this country in the war, it's this.

He knew. He was told these problems could arise and he ignored...worse yet, he didn't even warn us that it could turn into this. No, instead he kept insisting it would be quick and painless.

No, even as he landed on an aircraft carrier declaring "Mission Accomplished" he knew the mission may not be accomplished.

He took us for idiots. We've been had

That's why I am fed up with him.

Bush's Scapegoatss

Is anyone surprised that George Tenet is blasting the administration?

This White House has always been very good at deflecting blame for all their countless mistakes to former members of the administration or another loyal fall guy.

Instead of being real men and admitting their mistakes, they stand by their claim that they've done nothing wrong and throw the blame for mistakes to people around them.

These people are manipulative and dangerous. My heart bleeds for anyone who works for them.

Iraq: An Easter Reflection

As we celebrated our Easter (or Passover for some,) here in the states, another deadly weekend unfolded in Iraq. A truck bomb south of Baghdad killed 18, and at least 47 Iraqis were killed or found dead…today. 10 US soldiers died this weekend and to top it all off, a dire announcement from Muqtada-al-Sadr;

"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy,"

I ask you now, how, pray, can a democracy form, function and stabilize in a country where this man is listened to more than the Prime Minister? Imagine a situation where people take orders from Fred Phelps and not the President, Congress or Governors. That is what we have in Iraq; a population who wishes for a theocracy, not a democracy.

I am reminded of when this war started. I was a college student, working as Assistant News Director of my college radio station. I was in charge of producing the then 15 minute afternoon news show. We gathered most of our news using the Associated Press. We had an AP computer on site. Each news story on the AP is named by a slug, or a short one or two word label. For example, a story having to do with President Bush responded to Hurricane Katrina might be labeled BUSH-KATRINA, or one about Britney Spears in rehab may be SPEARS-REHAB. From the day we invaded Iraq in 2003 until the my last day at WRHU in May, 2006, straight until I went back to be a special on-air guest on Election Night last year, the AP computer had about 15 stories a day with the slug IRAQ. (IRAQ-BOMBING, IRAQ-PROTESTS, IRAQ-ISRAEL, etc.) I told everyone around me in 2003 that we would be seeing Iraq plastered all over this computer until our kids are pulling copy from it. Sadly, I'm beginning to think that may be true. What else is there to accomplish there? We got rid of Saddam and the country never had weapons of mass destruction, so essentially we've accomplished what we went there to achieve.

Now, the argument is, we have to fight terrorism there; terrorists who showed up in the country to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the power vacuum that was created by overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Terrorism exists there because of the failed bungled war policy of this administration, despite what Dick Cheney may say. All I really want to see first is for President Bush to ADMIT he made the situation worse than it was before.

Iraq is never going to be a Jeffersonian Democracy, not when people like al-Sadr are calling the shots. It is time for us to let the Iraqi people decide what government works for them. If they want to kill each other, let them kill each other. Let Iran waste their time intervening in a civil war. Maybe they'll spend so much of their resources funding the Shiite militias; they won't have time or money to build a nuke.

The Iraqis may not create a government we hoped for them, but I think it was naïve for us to believe that a secular democracy like ours would ever form in a country that sits in a region where piety trumps freedom and human rights. We are paying for our naivety and lack of knowledge of the outside world.

In the meantime, while you read this, IRAQ popped up at the AP computer at WRHU in Hempstead, New York about four times.

Guilty X 4

Scooter Libby is off to prison...perhaps the first of many coming from this administration

Libby was convicted of:
-obstruction of justice when he intentionally deceived a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame;
-making a false statement by intentionally lying to FBI agents about a conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert;
-perjury when he lied in court about his conversation with Russert;
-a second count of perjury when he lied in court about conversations with other reporters.

Jurors cleared him of a second count of making a false statement relating to a conversation he had with Matt Cooper of Time magazine.

Why do I still feel like he's a scapegoat?

THIS Is Why The Administration NEEDS to be Punished

Delusional...that about describes it all, in one word

The Delusional President, that should be his nickname

"Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans," NSA executive director Thomas Blanton said in a statement posted on the organisation's website.

Completely unrealistic...they didn't even understand the region, the culture, the beliefs of those they tried to liberate. They honestly believed it would be a cakewalk, that everything would just fall into place, because everyone loves democracy. They did not anticipate that anyone would fight AGAINST democracy. They honestly believed these people, who's culture allows them to cut off people's hands for theft and treat women like blow-up dolls, would embrace western democracy, no questions asked.

The idiocy alone, the stupidity of it...that's what makes this administration a failure. They are clueless...completely clueless.

Slow Down the Tehran Bandwagon

So Iran now...like no one saw this coming;

The Bush administration is haunted by the history of intelligence blunders about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction as the United States tries to document that Iran is providing lethal help to Iraqi fighters.
After weeks of preparation and revisions, U.S. officials are preparing to detail evidence supporting administration’s claims of Iran’s meddlesome and deadly activities. A briefing was scheduled Sunday in Baghdad.

After the intel debacle with Iraq, I wonder how many people actually trust this administration when it comes to it's "intelligence"

Just this week, we heard this;

As the Bush administration began assembling its case for war, analysts across
the U.S. intelligence community were disturbed by the report of a secretive
Pentagon team that concluded Iraq had significant ties to Al Qaeda.Analysts from
the CIA and other agencies "disagreed with more than 50%" of 26 findings the
Pentagon team laid out in a controversial paper, according to testimony Friday
from Thomas F. Gimble, acting inspector general of the Pentagon.

So how are we supposed to trust intelligence told to us by the Boy Who Cried Weapons of Mass Destruction.

That's not to say the case for a battle with Iran wouldn't be easier to make and would be a lie, but you can perfectly understand it if there is mass skepticism this time. The leader has led us off a cliff once and while he may not do it again...we can't be too sure.

Let's remember, however, before we put ourselves into our nationalistic "we can kick everyone's ass" attitude that we love so much that Iran is NOT Iraq or Afghanistan. Iran is a country, larger than France, that has not been weakened by decades of civil war and/or international sanctions. It is home to 70 million people, Iran has a rather strong and large standing military, one of the largest in the region. Now, I'm not saying they're going to defeat us, because they surely wouldn't, but we'd be fighting power we haven't fought in a while. American troops would not likely reach Tehran for months upon months. If we decide war in Iran is necessary, we'd better be damn sure it's worth doing.

The arguments are pretty clear; Iran supports terrorists in Iraq; Iran supports terrorists in Lebanon and the Palestinian areas; Iran's oppressive theocratic regime gives strength to Islamic fundamentalism; Iran will build nukes and use to them to hold Israel and it's Sunni neighbors hostage.

A war may not necessarily solve all those problems. For example, to invade Iran would be to partially redeploy from Iraq, as those troops would be needed. (Indeed, an invasion would require at least three times the size used for Iraq, possibly 900,000 American troops). So what's not to say Iran's Shiite extremists won't find a new home in now less-fortified Iraq...or worse, what's not to say they decide to take off to Lebanon, overthrow the government and now sit happily on Israel's border preparing an all out war there? What's not to say the fall of a theocratic regime, or more specifically of a third Islamic government at the hands of the United States, won't breed even more extremism from other countries fearing they're next. Could this be the trigger than brings down Pakistan's government and replaces it with an Islamic theocracy with it's hands on Pakistan's nukes?

When the time comes, and it will, these are issues we must think about before we jump on the Iran war bandwagon. What is happening now in Iraq would've been predicted, if only we had listen to those warning us four years ago...but we were all too busy marching in our ultra-nationalist America Love It or Leave It parade. Let's not make that mistake again.

War may be necessary, but before we send our friends and family to die thousands of miles away, let's make sure we have fully thought through what we're doing.