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.

US Now Says No Nuke Program In Iran

Seriously, can this governmet make up their damn minds.

A US intelligence report now says the Iranian government halted nuclear development in 2003 and has not restarted a nuclear weapons program, despite what the Bush administration has been telling us.

The report concluded that Iran is at least three years away from developing the technology that could be used to enrich uranium and build a nuclear bomb.

The Bush Administration is not backing down on it's assesment that Iran is the boogey man of the world. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley reiterated the administration's message that Iran's nuclear ambitions, which the NIE report says may not exist at all, is a serious risk.

The Illusion of Success

If the surge has produced anything, it's produced an excellent illusion that Iraq is under a great transformation. Do I think that's true? Not really. It seems to me all we did is plug a leak with our finger and the only way to keep it the leak from starting up again is to keep our finger there forever.

But that's not how the people will see it. I'm convinced of this. Americans very easily change their minds on issues and then blame the politicians who just did what they wanted. Remember, nearly two-thirds of Americans supported the Iraq war and nearly two-thirds of Congress voted for it. Now we don't want it anymore and what do we do? We blame Bush, Congressional Republicans and Congressional Democrats. We should be blaming ourselves for buying the administration's excellent work of fiction and letting our post-9/11 emotions get the best of us. Are we going to do it again? Are we going to buy the idea that this "success" forces us to stay in Iraq another five years, elect a President who will do it and then be sorry we did on January 22?

Brian Baird, a Washington Democratic Congressman, has already been convinced this farce is success. President Bush is doing an excellent job changing the Iraq debate in time for next year's election. Republicans will use this "success" as reason to stay in Iraq longer and enough people will buy it to see Democrats are agents of defeat and send Republicans back to the White House, only to regret it six months later.

Andrew Sullivan says it great after watching the Democratic debate;

The Democrats had better think through the shifting sands of Iraq with a little
more authority than they seemed to muster tonight.

To me, this "success" was inevitable and the Iraqis would've stood up against Al-Qaeda whether we were there or not. There has been little to no political reconciliation and the only thing the Iraqi government could agree on is to condemn an American defense contractor as terrorists. It is time to finally tell the Iraqis that we have done everything we can, and we've tried long enough. We need to plan for a withdrawal, not because we're defeated, but because we've done all we could and now it's up to the Iraqis. They have a certain amount of time to get their act together, because they seem to doing it just fine now, and then we're going on to other, more important, things. We are faced with the possibility of battling Iran, a country that if we go to war with it, will be the largest country we've fought since Japan. We're also faced with the possibility that Pakistan, a country of over 100 million people and nuclear weapons, may become an extremist state. We cannot be Iraq's babysitter forever. Our soldiers deserve a better mission. They deserve a mission with true results, not one to fix the colossal mistakes our politicians have made.

Well, Well, Well

Turns out the possibility that one day Iran may develop one nuke isn't the biggest concern for us after all.

Vagueness Get Us In Trouble Again

Perhaps, if it weren't for the ridiculously VAGUE definition of terrorism as laid out by us and the UN, Iran wouldn't have a point here.

Yes, based on our vague "terrorists attack civilians on purpose" definition, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Mai Lai, and Hadithya were all terrorist attacks.

Do I think we're terrorists? No, but does the definition fit, unfortunately yes.

Perhaps we need to redefine the word.

Now It's Convenient To Defend the Gays?

Newt Gingrich's laughable rational to why the President of Iran shouldn't have spoken at Columbia;

“I think it is an outrage for the university to lend its prestige to a dictator whose Government executes homosexuals, tortures and kills journalists, lock up students”

Yeah Newt, we shouldn't kill the gays, we should just make their lives so miserable that they wish they were dead, right?

Winter Storm Warning Issued For Hell

President Bush said Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia "speaks volumes about really the greatness of America."

We agree on something

scary

Dear Mahmoud, Welcome To Democracy

As critical as I've been, this is one of those moments where I love America

Here is a man who is obviously not a big fan of us, nor are we of him. He comes to our largest city, is greeted with protestors, sneers and booing, something that he can easily prevent back home by intimidation, but he can't do a damn thing about it here.

Yet, still, as we make it clear that we hope he rots in hell, we still let him come to our higher institutes of learning and share his ideas with us. We don't, as he would do to his opponents back home, muzzle him. We let him speak.

The free exchange of ideas. That, my friends, is what makes America so much better than where he comes from.

We Let Coulter Speak

I'm not a big fan of censoring people, no matter how wretched they are.

I mean we let Ann Coulter speak even though she sprews crap like this;

When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.

Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment.

I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.

So what if another hateful piece of garbage speaks at a college campus. Maybe it'll be a good lesson for him. Hey asshole, welcome to America, here we let people we hate speak, unlike your country where you cowardly have them all killed. Take notes, this is freedom jerk.

Iran's President Banned From Ground Zero

I don't really care either way.

The best part of this story;

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the site should not be "used as a photo op."

That goes for you too Rudy Giuliani

A Strange Place To Call For War

Who would've ever guessed you'd hear this from France?

That's a scary new administration they elected there.

Battling Over Iran

Ok, somebody has to go to sit this crazy loon down and tell him straight;

She's the Secretary of State. She's the one who gives the president advice on how to solve problems with other countries so we don't end up sending thousands of Americans to die over something that could've been solved by something simple.

You...are the guy who breaks ties in the Senate.

War Is Going So Well, Let's Start Another One

Joe Lieberman needs to be told to shut up.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq, And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

Yeah Joe, because right now we're totally prepared to face off against the biggest military power in the region, a country the size of Germany.

Idiot.

The Bush Press Confrerence

Key Things;

-If you don't listen to him, your kids will die.
-More Americans will be killed in Iraq, get used to it
-Sanctions against Iran will work, just look at how successfull they were in Iraq. (funny thing was, they were, unless you were Iraqi)
-Democrats just want to kick me around because everyone hates me. They bullying me.
-I don't know anything about this guy I'm talking about, except that he was born in Mexico, but he's great.

I'm still waiting for the one line that will restore my respect in this President...this one;

"I've screwed this war up so bad, I'm sorry, but I bungled it so bad, that we're stuck there in Iraq for a good long time."

That's all I want to hear from him

Ok, We'll Talk A Little

The US is agreeing to talk to Iran, but only about Iraq.

That's really the #1 reason why we need to open dialogue with the country

And so ends America's short and disastrous experiment with "cowboy diplomacy"

Cheney: Lets Start Another War YAY!

As if we're not having enough problems already, Cheney opened the floodgates and threatened another war in Iran

"We'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region,"

with others...he means Israel, that's about it. I'm not sure how many others want to commit themselves to another George W. Bush war. Let's ask Prime Minister-to-be Gordon Brown what he thinks. Isn't there an Australian election coming up?

Yeah, so Israel

War on Terrorism…Sometimes

How, can I ask, can we fight a "worldwide war on terrorism" when we are protecting groups whom we say ARE terrorists? Is this possible? I'm sorry, but I can't take this administrations' "global fight against terror" crap seriously when they're doing stuff like this. I don't care if they do see the Iranian regime as their enemy. What happens if we do end up at war with Iran and we do take down the Iranian government…we hand it over to these guys? Terrorists? Didn't we already say we can't hand over a country to the terrorists?

This is how we get into these messes, by supporting groups or countries that are questionable. We may their star rise. If we hadn't poured so much money into the mujahedeen in Pakistan in the 1980's, you think the Taliban would have ever existed or that Al-Qaeda would have the power it had today. We supported people who very clearly stabbed us in the back. What's to think these guys won't stab us in the back either?

Also, there's a double standard here. The State Department listed the MEK as a terrorist organization, meaning no American may deal with it and their assets are frozen, but our own government is protecting them? How can they can protect them, but nobody else can deal with them? The administration can give aid and comfort to these guys, even though they are terrorists, but Pelosi can't go talk to Syria, who, by the way, is NOT isolated from anyone but the US. It's hypocritical and not right.

Seriously, if you want to go to war with Iran Mr. President, just tell us, we'll have you impeached before Memorial Day.

And I Thought We Wanted Them To Stay Out

Somebody is losing their political clout at the White House...cause this is not how Bush normally is.

Wasn't only a few months ago when President Bush wanted Iran and Syria to stay out of Iraq...completely...now they can get involved, but under certain conditions.

Still, if Iran sinks it's teeth into Iraq, which is likely since half of Iraq is Shiite and the only real Shiite power is Iran, expect to see some sort of Islamic state form in Baghdad...one that will make us yearn for the days of Saddam.

No better way to defeat Islamic fundamentalist than essentially giving them a state...and we handed them Baghdad on March 20, 2003.

The End Of The Bush Doctrine

George W. Bush's bright idea of staging preemptive wars may see it's end

Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia) has introduced a bill that would bar the President from taking military action against Iran without Congressional approval. Basically the bill explains that the President can only stage a war against Iran (or any other country) with a declaration of war from Congress...kinda like what it says in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution. It's a complete repudiation of the Bush Doctrine, which advocates preemptive wars (or as I call it, Wars of Paranoia)

No more "police action" crap. The President has the power to regulate a war as Commander-in-Chief, but only after Congress gives him the authority to do it, only after Congress does their Constitutionally mandated function of declaring war.

The chances of this passing are good, but the chances of it becoming law are not. The Republicans will argue it gives Iran reason to agitate the United States, knowing the President's hands are tied (Ignorant to the fact that our streched-to-thin military ties him down already.) The President is never going to concede anything to Congress, especially his doctrine, 29% approval rating or not.

Yet, Senator Webb once again puts the Democrats on the side of the people and forces the Republicans to decide between their loyalty to Bush or to the people.

Wise Choice last November, Virginia.