Senior CIA Official: Bush Lied

[andyfox]

The author doesn't offer any evidence for his assertions. However, as a high ranking intelligence official, his words should carry some weight. I don't see how anybody looking objectively at the evidence can conclude anything other than what the author asserts: the decision to go into Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. 9/11 provided the cover, not the reason, for the war in Iraq. The public statements over the years of Libby, Abrams, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Wurmser, Perle, Cohen, Kagan, Kristol, Woolsey, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other noecons are clear. As was the administration's obsession with removing Hussein from its first day in office.

The piece should be supplemented by James Fallows' Blind Into Baghdad, which documents how governmental and non-governmental agencies (in the words of Pillar) "considered the principal challenges that any postinvasion authority in Iraq would be likely to face" and how the administration deliberately ignored this analysis for fear that negativity would undermine the enthusiasm for war:

http://www.epic-usa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=185

[MtSmalls]

Here is a likely, actionable plan:

1. Swing enough seats in the 2006 mid-term election to take control of the House. This election will be about reform (ethics, spending) not about terror.

2. Once in control of the House (and close in the Senate), stop GWB's budgets and spending plans. Re-set personal income taxes back to 1999 levels, eliminate all the special tax breaks for big business.

3. Get the investigations into the administration's conduct leading up to the war started (Plame, Intelligence, missing reconstruction funds in Iraq).

4. End any wiretapping or other investigations not being properly run through the FISA court, Impeach Bush if necessary. Reverse the Use of Force bill.

5. Close Gitmo, end any rendition of terrorism suspects.

6. Make further inroads during the 2008 election, after two years of solid achievement.

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
Your position differs little from what I hear in mainstream Dem circles; first Bush must go.

[/ QUOTE ]
There aren't any mainstream Democrats insisting that "Bush must go." Not even Gore has called for his impeachment or resignation. Of course there's no question that there's a lot of anti-Bush sentiment, growing daily, which Democrats are trying to exploit for partisan advantage. But the Republicans have a point (if wildly exaggerated) that much popular unrest is the result of policies that had wide, bipartisan support among national leaders.

Our differences rest in our different perceptions of the problem. You believe the problem is Bush-as-culprit, or at least that this is the gist of my complaint. I disagree. Like Saddam, Bush is responsible for his crimes, but didn't commit them in a vacuum or without the aiding and abetting of leaders of both parties, and that's just limiting it to officialdom. The problem is institutional and structural, such as media reliance on access to officials and the symbiotic deference it gives to official claims. Problems like these won't be solved by trying to elect better people.

If you want an agenda for what ordinary citizens should do, it's simple: they should read, organize, protest and resist. Opportunities for meaningful democracy -- or at least something better than the current grotesque nonsense -- arise only after enough people perceive the system as unworkable and illegitimate. Voting for Democrats might be nothing better than a baby step in the right direction, but possibly not even that.

[BluffTHIS!]

Post deleted by andyfox

[West]

[ QUOTE ]
The reasons we entered Iraq are not important issues to me and to most of America.

[/ QUOTE ]

Speak for yourself.

[FlFishOn]

I see one big problem. Current Tradesports price on GOP house control is 75. That projects to a 25% chance for the Dems. GOP senate is 80+. So what you call 'likely' I'd call a big dog.

" ...stop GWB's budgets and spending plans. Re-set personal income taxes back to 1999 levels, eliminate all the special tax breaks for big business."

The House makes the budget not GWB. W/O control you'll change little. The tax cuts stand. and all the special tax breaks for big business, well, that's called the tax code.

I dunno. You have a couple things here that are forward going but most of it is anti-Bush. That's the path of doom. You buy no votes from the great middle stomping Bush policies. You need to show America that they will be safer in your hands. You propose nothing that adds to security, only takes away.

[FlFishOn]

Take a poll. I'm right. Don't just poll Berkeley, OK?

[canis582]

Fish: get a government that won't lie to the people and steal from them and poison them, thats my forward-looking solution.

Punters dont always get things right. This november, things will change in the non-diebold states. Revolutions in the others.

[FlFishOn]

"...in the non-diebold states. "

I'm able to put your entire political philosophy in a little box with this one line. Good luck to you.

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
"...in the non-diebold states. "

I'm able to put your entire political philosophy in a little box with this one line. Good luck to you.

[/ QUOTE ]

...you must be one smart fellow.

How would you charactarize your own 'entire political philosophy' given the same line of critique?