Cataloging George W. Bush's Lies, Lies and more Lies.
| Bush's favorite lie Sat, 17 Nov 2007 18:32:49 By Robert Parry Presstv.ir | |
There's the one about how before Sept. 11, 2001, Americans thought that “oceans protected us” - although perhaps not from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads, which during the Cold War had school children hiding under desks and homeowners buying bomb shelters. After taking office in January 2001, Bush was so confident about the protective oceans that he pushed aggressively for a "Star Wars" missile defense system. Or there's Bush's oft-repeated claim that al-Qaeda terrorists are poised to dominate the world through a caliphate “stretching from Spain to Indonesia,” though in reality they are a bunch of crazed misfits forcibly exiled from their own countries and now living in caves along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Bush also insists that Americans must heed what Osama bin Laden says, like when this homicidal maniac supposedly calls Iraq the “central front” in the “war on terror,” the American people must keep troops there indefinitely. But it's never explained why it makes sense for the United States to let bin Laden's public declarations shape Washington's policies. There's a chance, you see, that bin Laden is either completely nuts or perhaps clever enough to bait Bush into taking actions that actually help al-Qaeda, like getting the United States bogged down in Iraq, alienating the Muslim world and diverting military resources away from where bin Laden is hiding. Indeed, the evidence from captured (internal rather than public) al-Qaeda communications indicates that bin Laden's high command considers Afghanistan and Pakistan - not Iraq - their central front. In 2005, for instance, one intercepted letter, purportedly written by al-Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, asked fighters in Iraq to send $100,000 to headquarters back on the Afghan-Pakistani border. If Bush were right - and al-Qaeda considered Iraq the “central front” - one might expect that the money would be going in the opposite direction. Personal Favorite But my personal favorite Bush lie is when he insists that the United States invaded Iraq to enforce a United Nations resolution and that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein “chose war” by barring UN weapons inspectors. Bush dusted off that old canard on Nov. 7 while standing next to French President Nicolas Sarkozy during a press conference at George Washington's estate at Mount Vernon in Virginia. Responding to a question from a French journalist about Bush's dispute with France over the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US president said: “We had a difference of opinion with your great country over whether or not I should have used military force to enforce UN demands. … I just want to remind you that [UN Resolution] 1441 was supported by France and the United States, which clearly said to the dictator, you will disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. Now, I'm the kind of person that when somebody says something, I take them for their word.” Bush has made this same false argument scores of times dating back to July 2003, several months after the invasion when it was becoming clear that Saddam Hussein had told the truth when his government reported to the UN in 2002 that Iraq's WMD stockpiles had been eliminated. Hussein also relented in fall 2002, allowing UN weapons inspectors to travel freely around Iraq checking out suspected WMD sites. The UN inspectors found nothing and reported growing Iraqi cooperation in the early months of 2003. In other words, Hussein was complying with Resolution 1441. Nevertheless, Bush was determined to invade Iraq and tried to get the UN Security Council to go along. However, France and most other members of the Security Council rebuffed Bush and sought more time for the inspectors. Then, in defiance of the UN - and in violation of the UN Charter, which prohibits aggressive wars - Bush forced out the UN inspectors and launched his “shock and awe” assault. After a bloody three-week campaign, US-led forces toppled Hussein's government, but found no WMD caches. Instead of admitting the obvious facts - that he had launched an unprovoked war on false pretenses - Bush rewrote the history. Starting at a White House press briefing on July 14, 2003, Bush began insisting that he had no choice but to invade Iraq because Hussein wouldn't let the UN inspectors in. Bush told reporters: “We gave him [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.” Bush's Litany Facing no contradiction from the White House press corps, Bush repeated this lie in varied forms over the next four-plus years as part of his litany defending the invasion. On Jan. 27, 2004, for example, Bush said, “We went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution - 1441 - unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in.” As the years went by, Bush's lie and its unchallenged retelling took on the color of truth. At a March 21, 2006, news conference, Bush again blamed the war on Hussein's defiance of UN demands for unfettered inspections. “I was hoping to solve this [Iraq] problem diplomatically,” Bush said. “The world said, 'Disarm, disclose or face serious consequences.' … We worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny the inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did.” At a press conference on May 24, 2007, Bush offered a short-hand version, even inviting the journalists to remember the invented history. “As you might remember back then, we tried the diplomatic route: [UN Resolution] 1441 was a unanimous vote in the Security Council that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. So the choice was his [Hussein's] to make. And he made a choice that has subsequently caused him to lose his life.” Not only have Washington journalists stayed consistently silent in the face of this false history, some have even adopted Bush's lie as their own. For instance, in a July 2004 interview, ABC's veteran newsman Ted Koppel used it to explain why he - Koppel - thought the invasion of Iraq was justified. “It did not make logical sense that Saddam Hussein, whose armies had been defeated once before by the United States and the Coalition, would be prepared to lose control over his country if all he had to do was say, 'All right, UN, come on in, check it out,'” Koppel told Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now.” Of course, Hussein did tell the UN to “come on in, check it out.” But that was in the real world, not in the faux reality that governs modern Washington. Bush's Iraq lies are now entering a new political generation, seeping into Campaign 2008. At the Republican debate on June 5, 2007, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended Bush's invasion on the grounds that Hussein refused to let UN weapons inspectors in to search for WMD. If Saddam “had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction,” the war might have been averted, Romney said. Not surprisingly, Romney's false statement was no more challenged by the CNN debate moderators than Bush's earlier versions had been. By constant repetition, Bush has transformed his lie into what passes for truth in modern American politics. |
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| Bush not a reliable nuclear judge Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:14:30 By Tad Daley Presstv.ir | |
Some call the phenomenon "America's nuclear hypocrisy." Others call it the "nuclear double standard," others still call it "nuclear narcissism." But Iranian President, Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, often calls it "nuclear apartheid." Let's remember two recent passings. One Paul Tibbets' death, commander of the US Army Air Forces B-29, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, that killed at least 80,000 people, and the other Randall Forsberg, the genius behind the 1982 Central Park nuclear freeze rally, which the New York Times called the largest political demonstration in American history, both died, ironically, within just a few days of each other. Let's also remember two separate remarks made by Bush administration officials, UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey, who made simultaneous remarks the day before Tibbets died that illuminated the nuclear double standards more starkly than ever. This time it was not, as it usually is, the divergence between the rules of the game for countries like Iran (nuclear weapons permitted: zero) and for countries like the US (nuclear weapons presently possessed: 10,000-plus with concrete plans to design, develop and deploy new and improved nuclear weapon models). No, this time it was the double standard between the US expectations for countries it likes and those for countries it doesn't like. First, on Oct. 29, Khalilzad repeated the formulation about Iran that has been expressed many times by many Bush administration voices. "Given the record of this regime, the rhetoric of this regime, the policies of this regime, the connections of this regime, it cannot be acceptable for it to develop the capability to produce nuclear weapons." It was a wearyingly familiar argument. Therefore, the US assessment of the character of the countries determines whether it will permit them to pursue a nuclear "capability." But on the same day that Khalilzad made his statement, America's good friend Egypt announced that it intended to build several new nuclear power plants over the next several decades. Washington was quick to indicate that it did not disapprove. "Any country that fulfills its obligations under the NPT and follows proper IAEA safeguards will have a program that is perfectly acceptable to us," said Casey. The Bush administration's standard for Iran has never been simply that it must fully cooperate with the IAEA. It demands, instead, that Tehran cease all uranium enrichment activities. Had Khalilzad said "develop nuclear weapons" instead of "develop the capability to produce nuclear weapons," he would perhaps not have found himself standing on such very thin ice. As a matter of fact, the NPT forbids non-nuclear signatories like Iran and Egypt from acquiring nuclear weapons, not from acquiring the enrichment capabilities that can be used for peaceful purposes. However, Article IV explicitly acknowledges that all parties possess an "inalienable right" to pursue nuclear energy "without discrimination." From the view point of the American politicians it is becoming more and more apparent that Article IV was a fundamental flaw in the original terms of the NPT itself. But that flaw is hardly Iran's fault or Iran's problem. Just the day before Khalilzad and Casey made their remarks, IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei told Wolf Blitzer on CNN: "Have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used into a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No." Therefore, bearing his remarks witness, no one can claim that Iran is deviating from the NPT safeguards and is after atomic weapons. So contrary to Mr. Casey's declaration, the US government is hardly conceding that "any country" meeting his stated criteria is acting in a manner "perfectly acceptable to US." Because what Egypt announced at the end of October was that it intended to start doing exactly the same thing that Iran has already begun to do, nothing more and nothing less. The Bush administration, instead, subjectively and unilaterally, is assessing the "record, rhetoric, policies and connections" of both Egypt and Iran, and pronouncing that the one may proceed down the nuclear road while the other may not. The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, one of the great peace activists of the 20th century, who died last year, liked to quote Mahatma Gandhi, who said "a fat man cannot speak persuasively to a skinny man about the virtues of not overeating." To much of the world, US double standards appear sanctimonious, self-righteous, and based on a notion that some are inherently responsible enough to be "trusted" with these weapons of the apocalypse, while others are not. President Bush himself, perhaps unwittingly, often manages to let slip this conceit of cultural superiority. "We owe it to our children," he said in August of 2002, "to free the world from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of those who hate freedom." Here, surely, we have the most candid, unvarnished answer to the nuclear question. Some states are rational, sober, and righteous and can be trusted with the nuclear prize. Others are simply too volatile, too dangerous, too unpredictable to be permitted to venture down the same road. However one may wonder who the Judge will be. Who will render ad hoc, case-by-case verdicts on whether certain leaders or people can be trusted with nuclear weapons? Who will serve as prosecutor, jury and enforcer? Why the Freedom Lovers, of course, in whose hands nuclear weapons already reside, do not come to this conclusion that Iran is in accord with its obligations under the NPT and should have the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. MMS/MG |
Posted by USHOSTAGE1 at 11/21/2007 8:58 PM 
Categories: aipac.org, defense.gov, uscourts.gov, ATTORNEY, Pentagon, phillipslaw.com, Government, centcom, sis.gov.uk, centcom.mil
Categories: aipac.org, defense.gov, uscourts.gov, ATTORNEY, Pentagon, phillipslaw.com, Government, centcom, sis.gov.uk, centcom.mil
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