The winner of the 2008 “Captain Obvious” award has already been determined…three weeks into the year. Congrats to the champion, this report:
False Statements Preceded WarÂ
The first two paragraphs of the APÂ story:Â
WASHINGTON – A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”
First of all, I could have saved them a bunch of time if they’d just called me. But be that as it may…
It appears these “hundreds of false statements…” ultimately “…led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses…” It would follow, then, that these “false statements” could also be called hundreds of  ”lies”, no? Oh, and those hundreds of lies subsequently killed 4,000 of our finest citizens. Now, tell me again, from what I understand this is not an impeachable offense but lying about an office hummer is? Okay. Whatever.
11 responses so far ↓
1
Joe Ciera
// Jan 23, 2008 at 11:26 am
Why is that when organizations biased toward liberalism concoct these things that their findings are considered Gospel? George Soros funds this group, I think…no bias there, right? If you believe whatever you believe for whatever reasons, fine…but why on earth would you presume that this nonsense give you any credence, or you it. Self-rightuousness is terribly unbecoming even when one is indeed right…it eliminates any chance of meaningful dialogue.
2
Anon E. Mouse
// Jan 26, 2008 at 12:09 pm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main3749494.shtml
3
Knight in Dragonland
// Jan 27, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Hmmm … interesting. What was your point in providing that link, Anon? In it, Saddam confirmed to his interrogator that all his weapons of mass destruction were destroyed and that he viewed Osama bin Laden as a threat, not an ally. The fact that the administration had this information and continued to insinuate links between the Hussein regime and Al Qaeda seems to prove the point that the Bush administration perpetrated a deliberate campaign of disinformation.
4
Joe Ciera
// Jan 28, 2008 at 3:50 pm
…and Soddam Hussein was well know for his integrity, candor, and honesty.
5
bjstone
// Jan 28, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Knight, I was wondering the exact same thing: what was the point, there, Mouse? Not a lot of that link made sense to me.
Joe, from the Fund for Independence In Journalism:
“The Fund for Independence in Journalism does not accept contributions from corporations, labor unions, governments, or anonymous donors, nor does it derive any income from any form of advertising.
The Fund believes, as a fundamental tenet of its mission, that the source of its support should be transparent and available to the public scrutiny. It is the general policy of the Fund promptly to disclose on its website the name of each grantor of the Fund and, if such grantor’s gift exceeds $250, the amount of such gift.
American Communications Foundation
Baker-Root Family Foundation
Emily Bingham
Charles Lewis
Litowitz Foundation, Inc.
Donna Mae Litowitz
Bevis Longstreth
The Nell Williams Family Foundation
The John and Florence Newman Foundation
Glen Osterhout
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Pamela & George Rohr
The Malcolm H. Wiener Foundation
Paul Volcker”
Here’s the other group listed:
“The Center for Public Integrity extends its sincere thanks to our funders and members, without whom our work would not be possible.
The Center does not accept contributions from corporations, labor unions, governments or anonymous donors.
Foundation Support
Annenberg Foundation
Around Foundation
Attias Family Foundation
The Brodie Price Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation
Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation
Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Compton Foundation, Inc.
Deer Creek Foundation
Domitila Barrios de Chungara Fund at Peninsula Community Foundation
Dudley Foundation
Educational Foundation of America
Everett Philanthropic Fund at the New York Community Trust
Ford Foundation
David B. Gold Foundation
Daniel J. Goldman Foundation
Gunzenhauser-Chapin Fund
Haas Charitable Trusts
Hafif Family Foundation
The Heinz Endowments
Honeybee Foundation
The Inge Foundation
JEHT Foundation
The Lawrence Foundation
Liberty Hill Foundation
John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Maloney Family Fund
The Robert & Bethany Millard Charitable Foundation
Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust
Nell Williams Family Foundation
New York Community Trust
John & Florence Newman Foundation
Park Foundation, Inc.
Karen & Christopher Payne Foundation
Popplestone Foundation
Lynn R. & Karl E. Prickett Fund
Princeton University Class of 1969
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation
Scherman Foundation, Inc.
The Joan Shorenstein Center
Streisand Foundation
John & Donna Sussman Foundation
The Fund for Independence in Journalism
Town Creek Foundation, Inc.
Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
The Elmaleh Fund at the New York Community Trust
Wallace Global Fund
Integrity Circle (Individuals $10,000 and above)
Harriett Crosby
Arthur D. Lipson
Donna Mae Litowitz
Fred and Alice Stanback
Transparency Circle (Individuals $5,000 — $9,999)
Bruce A. Finzen
Paula Madison
Muckraker Circle (Individuals $1,000 — $4,999)
Richard I. Beattie
Hodding Carter
Russell Daniel
Ken Feinberg
Wilfred J. Gragert
Barbara J. Graves
Jimmy W. Janacek
Jerry Knoll
George W. Krumme
James J. Lippard
Susan Loewenberg
Bevis Longstreth
Michael Marston
Janet Maughan
Carolyn M. Murphey
Jan Nicholson
Geneva Overholser
Charles Piller
Jared Polis
Donovan Rasmussen
Eugene Scanlan
Ben Sherwood
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
Watchdog Circle (Individuals $250 — $999)
Caesar Alarcon
Brian Arbogast
George W. Bauer
R. Harwood Beville
Barbara P. Boucot
David Braybrooke
Peter Broner
Ruth E. Brown
Rachel Buddenerg
Jerry D. Busch
Henry Button
William E. Buzenberg
Peter Case
Jonathan Coopersmith
Edward Cummings and Erin Chung
John A. Davidson
Giovanna Deveny
James K. Donnell
Robert D. Duke
David Earney
Rita Falwell
Grover Foster
Dan Gillmor
Milton Glicksman
Charles Gorman
James C. Grant
Gay Gwinner
Virginia M. Haas
Aaron S. Hamburger
Ben Hemmen
Kurt D. Hudson
Jonathan Ingbar
Lecia R. Kaslofsky
Irwin Katz
Thomas Kaysar
Alan S. King
Marie Kireker
William S. Lee
Charles Lewis
Gail Mattsson
Barbara J. Meislin
Luther T. Munford
Michael J. O’Connor
Michael O’Keefe
John Pasquin
Susan Patterson
Alan Pye
Jacques M. Quen
Seymour Rubak
David Rush
Chris R. Schoeneman
Yosefi M. Seltzer
Andre Shashaty
David Sobelson
Anne Sprecher
Sree Sreenivasan
Donald O. Stover
Peter D. Thompson
Mark S. Thompson
Michael Tiemann
Ralph Tornberg
John H. Whitmer
Harold M. Williams
Stacy Woodruff”
Which one is Soros associated with?
6
bjstone
// Jan 28, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Joe, re: Saddam’s “Traits”…he sounds just like Dick Cheney! Amazin’! LOL
7
vonster
// Jan 29, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Beej, have you seen the video on my site that documents just a few of the Demos that agreed with Bush and agreed that he had WMDs and needed to be removed?
8
Anon E. Mouse
// Jan 29, 2008 at 7:11 pm
My point was that Saddam was making us all think he had WMD’s – on purpose.
9
reno
// Jan 30, 2008 at 10:45 am
Yes, because he totally knew he could defeat the U.S., just like he did in the Gulf War, right?
Please.
vonster, it’s easy to agree when you think the lies you’ve been told are based on infallible, top-notch, post-911 information. The question you should be asking is whether they’d agree to it if the war proposal had been made by honest people. But then again, honest people wouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq in 2003.
Sorry, BJ, I’ve gotta reply to Joe Ciera’s amazing first reply to this post (I promise I won’t make your blog a battlefield too often). Joe, baby! Correct me if I’m wrong (which, judging by what you’ve said, I’m not), but what you’re saying is (apologies for the run-on sentences):
“Regardless of the quotes listed which clearly show that false-pretenses were knowingly used to go to war and the now-obvious effort to market the idea of going to war through distortion and manipulation; regardless of the fact that it gives creedance to the idea that they were actually looking for someone to attack; regardless of our hypocrisy in denouncing “rogue nations” for warmongering and unprovoked aggression, which is exactly what we’ve been doing; and despite the fact that these quotes were obtained through public sources that I, myself can research, I’m going to call it biased and accuse the people reporting this information of merely concocting it.
“Then I’ll assert that its validity is based not on the evidence they’ve provided, but on your own beliefs. I’m going to call it nonsense, even though the evidence is right there in front of me. I’m going to knowingly ignore it with my tail between my legs and pretend it’s not there. I’m then going to say that the one who is informing me of this “concoction” is self-righteous, while ignoring the blatant truth that to even think that meaningful dialogue can be accomplished with someone (such as myself) who supports war-mongering, profiteering, lying, fascist leaders who humor us by saying “abortion is wrong” while wreaking murder and havoc on the world and belong in the political party I vote for is, in and of itself, self-righteous.”
Good going, champ. How do you sleep at night?
10
vonster
// Jan 30, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Reno: Would you agree that sometimes the people in the know have to fib to the populace in order to get them on board with something that HAS to be done?
11
reno
// Jan 31, 2008 at 12:01 am
Let society decide for themselves. That basically mirrors the conservative mantra of “let the market decide,” doesn’t it?
I’d be interested to know why you think this was something that had to be done. Iraq was actually held together by Saddam! Bush Sr. even said that while he hoped Saddam would be overthrown by the military, Iraqis were determined to not to change a damn thing. (oddly enough, he also learned that terrorism is best dealt with by covert means–not with the military. Too bad his son didn’t pay attention to this)
Read the Bush Sr. biography by Timothy Naftali. It mostly praises him for his “realist” policies. Referring to the previous post on my blog: if you want an example of how fringe the right wing has become over the past few decades, that’d be a good place to start.
But man, Iraq has fallen apart. At least under Saddam it was stable. Sure, he was a bastard, but he was a bastard who kept things in order better than we can (as it turns out). Hell, Iraqi women were considered among the most liberated in the middle east under that scumbag, and now they’ve lost decades of progress. Not allowed to work, hardly allowed to leave their homes…
The thing that gets me about this is, if this absolutely had to be done because Iraq was a despotism… well, why them and not one of the other 589238934748480943 despotic governments in the region?
Usually, if a war is just, the public doesn’t need to be persuaded–let alone lied to to do it.
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