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Compilation of prewar false statements
Topic Started: Jan 23 2008, 03:11 PM (2,070 Views)
Dandandat
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Time to put something here
ImpulseEngine
Jan 23 2008, 07:21 PM
Where's your source and how is that the same? :rolleyes:

Because some of those are false statements. Must mean the Clinton administration are just as dishonest as the current one.
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Dandandat
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Jag
Jan 23 2008, 10:01 PM
This is why the vote for President is so very important. Consider that there are two very different answers to a critical decision for a given President.

Option #1. Attack, Invade, justified, pre-emptive strike.(Before the Mushroom cloud)

Option #2. Keep your options on the table until the last possible minute and keep talking until the Last possible minute.

Examples: JFK and Bush.

John F. Kennedy:
During the cuban missle crisis JFK stuck to option #2 because he believed if he chose option #1 the Soviets would retalliate in Europe against Berlin. The Hawks in the Joint Chiefs of staff rode Kennedy's ass to strike those missles in Cuba. Kennedy got away with it. It appears that he made the right decision.

George W. Bush:
During the build up to Shock and Awe invasion of Iraq Bush listened to the Hawks (Slam dunk anyone?) Further more he honestly believed the hype. He did not Lie, he honestly believed this threat was real. So did Colin Powell, and so did I. Bush did not get away with it. It appears to me on the evidence at hand he made the wrong decision.

However in these times I do not have the luxery of 40 years of historical reflection, we are still learning where the Proverbial chips are falling.
Ultimately I regret the destabilization of Iraq by the invasion, yet the bright side may yet be on the horizon. A foothold in the region for ALL ETERNITY. In the end I have no other choice but to support my next PRES whom I will choose very carefully.

Did JFK pick option # 2. There is a school of thought that JFK pushed the issue to the braking point, and that it was a scarred Khrushchev who kept nuclear war at bay.
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Dandandat
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Dr. Noah
Jan 24 2008, 07:00 AM
If you say something that isn't true even though you believe it to be true, isn't it still a lie?

:huh: Ummm NO :huh:


it means you where wrong.
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Minuet
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ds9074
Jan 24 2008, 07:03 AM
Dr. Noah
Jan 24 2008, 12:00 PM
If you say something that isn't true even though you believe it to be true, isn't it still a lie?

I would describe it as unintentionally misleading rather than lying which implies a delibrate attempt to decieve.

We have a word for it in the english language.

Mistake.
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Minuet
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Dandandat
Jan 24 2008, 09:16 AM
ImpulseEngine
Jan 23 2008, 07:21 PM
Where's your source and how is that the same?  :rolleyes:

Because some of those are false statements. Must mean the Clinton administration are just as dishonest as the current one.

Do two wrongs make a right?

The discussion of whether Bush was mistaken or if he lied is a valid one, no matter what past presidents did. Previous presidents lying does not make it ok for the current one to do so (and I am not concluding that he did).
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Minuet
Jan 24 2008, 09:42 AM
Dandandat
Jan 24 2008, 09:16 AM
ImpulseEngine
Jan 23 2008, 07:21 PM
Where's your source and how is that the same?  :rolleyes:

Because some of those are false statements. Must mean the Clinton administration are just as dishonest as the current one.

Do two wrongs make a right?

The discussion of whether Bush was mistaken or if he lied is a valid one, no matter what past presidents did. Previous presidents lying does not make it ok for the current one to do so (and I am not concluding that he did).

Well two answers.

One) I haven't really made the clam that Clinton was lying. Just putting IE's logic to work there too. I should have been more clear.

Two) about to wrongs making a right; we would first have to determine if the actions taken by presents which we have sweepingly labeled as 'dishonest' where in fact wrong. How wonderful it would be if the world where such a way where no one had to keep secrets and everything could be put on the table for all to see. But we don’t live in that world, maybe we will never live in that world and holding our leaders to some unattainable idealistic standard mybe where the wrong lies.

There are so many questionable historical facts that if we demanded “honesty” then the world might not be where it is today. We might not be as well off as we are. How right is it for us to play the victim now?
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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
RTW
Jan 23 2008, 07:52 PM
ImpulseEngine
Jan 23 2008, 05:21 PM
Where's your source and how is that the same?  :rolleyes:

Most sources are cited.

How is it the same??? How is it different?

How come the "Center for Public Integrity" only cites Bush when many other politicians were saying the exact same thing?

This is suspiciously similar to a moveon.org hit piece. Soros "only" donated $1.7 million to the center. (link)

Once again, it's a right-winged sistertrekkian providing balance to the left-winged post of a progressive/moderate/independent (?) sistertrekkian. Posted Image

I believe this is the appropriate reply:

Posted Image

:P
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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Wichita
Jan 23 2008, 08:36 PM
ImpulseEngine
 
...  how is that the same? ...


Earlier in the thread you said:

ImpulseEngine
 
Saying "we believe Iraq has..." or "Iraq likely is..." is entirely different than "Iraq has..." and "Iraq is...".


You are absolutely correct - if the statements from other officials contained world like "likely", "possible", "suspected", or even "probable". As demonstrated we can see that they didn't contain those words.

You also said:

ImpulseEngine
 
And, even if you are correct, saying "someone else did it" isn't a justification for it.


No, but it certainly is an explanation for the reaction to the comments that the site you linked to calls "false".

If the President (generic President) told us tommorrow that we had to attack Monte Carlo tommorrow because it had weapons of mass destruction and they were ready to use them, the collective response of US citizens would have been "Are you nuts?" and calling our Congress to fast track impeachment.

Why? Because who has ever made any claim of any kind that Monte Carlo is a physical threat.

However, if we had been hearing for a dozen years that Monte Carlo was a powderkeg ready to go off or that they were working secretly to attack us, then we wouldn't say "Are you nuts?".

We would have been conditioned by the previous statements to - at least - be more likely to believe the later statements.

The statements together had a collective effect of helping to make the case for war against Iraq "discussable".

Wichita,

Since, unlike RTW, you chose to actually discuss the topic, I will answer the question for you. First, I apparently misunderstood what RTW's point was. When he said looks like someone had tried this before, I thought he meant compiling a similar list about Bush. Between that statement and his clowning around, I didn't think he was actually making a serious point and so I didn't even read the list. I see now that he was talking about the Clinton administration. That said, I essentially agree with what you have said here.

I would point out the following, however: While the Clinton administration may have made statements that were inaccurate, I don't know the degree to which there was disagreement behind the scenes over their accuracy. I do know this about the Bush administration from what I have read. If that same disagreement was there with Clinton, then I would certainly agree that presenting the statements as facts is the same behavior that the Bush administration is guilty of. Clinton, however, did not take the country to war with Iraq on such misrepresentation. Bush did. In addition, the website I posted was quite methodical about gathering its information. (See the "methodology" section.) RTW's statements apparently weren't even gathered by the same person, judging by his lack of being able to post the one source that he got that list from. So I also must question how accurately those statements represent the whole picture compared with what the website that I linked does.

What's also funny about RTW's list is many of those wrong statements (ones that were said during the Bush administration and not by Clinton) were derived from the misinformation that the Bush administration was disseminating.

Quote:
 
ImpulseEngine
 
The specific numbers aren't important.


I'm glad to hear you say that.

On the various occasions that I have listed the "whoppers" told the American people to justify intervention in a European civil war, I usually get the answer "Did anyone die?"

If a statement is truly a lie, then it doesn't matter what the numbers are.

As to the website ....

Time does not allow me to participate much in this thread but I was interested enough to look and see what the site itself said.

"Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War" was the title on the first page.

I would have to say the site set themselves up for failure from the get go.

Quote:
 
or·ches·trate      (ôr'ki-strat')  Pronunciation Key 
tr.v.  or·ches·trat·ed, or·ches·trat·ing, or·ches·trates

To compose or arrange (music) for performance by an orchestra.
To arrange or control the elements of, as to achieve a desired overall effect: orchestrated a successful political campaign.


dictionary.com

I'm guessing that they are using the second definition.

Well, if the Administration really did what they claim, they were involved in a conspiracy from the beginning. They aren't claiming that Bush just preferred to pick the choice of information that supported his position. They are claiming that he KNEW the information was false and deliberately chose to mislead the country and did so consistently without anyone in on the conspiracy ... for lack of a better word ... squealing.

First, that is an impossibly high standard to prove and I didn't get the sense from what I did read that they were even trying to reach that standard.

Second, I haven't seen anything from this administration that would convince me that they are capable of pulling off such a conspiracy.

Then, in the third paragraph, it said:

Quote:
 
It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have any meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. 


Well, first of all that statement is false. ;)

But, more importantly, I have to question the statement in relationship to the quesitons that they claim are "false".

For example, did each and every reference, about Al Qaeda ties to Iraq, specifically state that the ties were "meaningful"? Somehow I doubt that, but, if the "false" statement did not contain the word "meaningful" then the site is claiming something is "false" that never was actually said.

Again, I wish I had time to go into it further, but it is not be be at this time.

It was interesting though.
I don't think the website is claiming that Bush knew the information was false. I believe they are claiming that he knew the picture wasn't clear, made a judgment call (even if that was truly his belief in the absence of any agenda) about which possibility was factual, but then presented the picture to the country and to his fellow politicians as though we knew these things to be true.

As for the term, "meaningful", I see the point you are making. Obviously, that specific word wouldn't have to be used, but some equivalent would need to be present for the website to be accurate. I can't answer that without analyzing all the data more closely, but it's a valid point.
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ImpulseEngine
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Jag
Jan 23 2008, 10:01 PM
George W. Bush:
During the build up to Shock and Awe invasion of Iraq Bush listened to the Hawks (Slam dunk anyone?) Further more he honestly believed the hype. He did not Lie, he honestly believed this threat was real. So did Colin Powell, and so did I. Bush did not get away with it. It appears to me on the evidence at hand he made the wrong decision.

You are certainly entitled to your belief and opinion, but I must point out that it is only one possibility. Bush may have truly believed "the hype". He also was just coming off of a very controversial election from which a huge segment of the population was expressing a lot of animosity toward him. After 9/11, the table was set. He could handle this really well and win over a lot of those people or he could handle it all poorly and risk losing the support of so many more people. Naturally, even without that, he would want to handle it well anyway, but it was all the more important - important enough to fabricate things if need be - because of the election that put him in office. The immediate retaliation in Afghanistan didn't yield the capture of Bin Laden. In the absence of something like the Iraq war, this wasn't going to sit too well with the American people. He had to do something to prove he was really going all out to answer to what happened. In my opinion, I believe this weighed heavily on why he made the choices he did with his interpretations of the available information. At some level he may have believed it to a certain degree, but he also wanted and needed it all to be true.
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ImpulseEngine
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Franko
Jan 23 2008, 11:20 PM
Whatever state that Iraq may be in for the next few years may still be preferrable to the long-term nightmare that Saddam and his offspring had in store.  I'm not claiming that this is not complicated.  However, if we'd have very little problems rebuilding Iraq;  and there was peace and love with few US casualties and it was going well, would anyone REALLY CARE ABOUT THE PRE-WAR INTEL ???? 


Of course not.

I would.

And the fact remains that we may have taken other actions with better outcomes, including still deposing Saddam. For example, we may have had wider global support if the only difference was that we had taken the time to first pursuade other countries instead of rushing in on the erroneous assumption that Saddam might complete his ability to set of a nuclear missile at almost anytime. But then, other countries may have looked at the leaps of conclusions Bush and the administration were making and simply laughed. That's probably why they didn't do this...
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ImpulseEngine
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Dandandat
Jan 24 2008, 09:12 AM
ImpulseEngine
Jan 23 2008, 05:40 PM
Quote:
 
Dandandat
Jan 23 2008, 05:02 PM
That’s the custard in the donut ant it? In order to prove your arguments you need to sight facts.

They provided a bibliography. If there are reports, like the 911 Commission Report, that have already established certain facts, why should they have to do so again here?

If they are going to compile a List of ‘false statements’ and present it as a vast database of such. They have to do more then say "Its there, read the 9/11 commission report". It is on them to make their case with statements of facts, backed up by real evidence, so that I the reader can decided the merits. If I need to go do the research my self to see if they are right then they become superfluous and in my opinion suspect. Suspect because I have to wonder why they are making it difficult for me to find the truth fullness in their work.

I don't agree. That's the whole point of citing sources. If you had to prove every last detail yourself, why bother with other sources at all? Plus, they may do so yet. It's an ongoing project right now.


Quote:
 
If 10,000,000 statements where made by these people in that 2 year period, then 935 becomes insignificant. If only 935 statements where made then 935 becomes very significant. This is especially important since this website counts one individual answer to one interview question as a statement. In that light I think the number of statements in a 2 year period by four of the most powerful people in the world is a rather low number. It would have been nice if the web sight gave us a count of how many statements where made. It would add prospective to the work. Again another reason to think this sight is suspect.

On top of that, when "False Statement" can simply mean "a wrong Statement" it becomes even more important.
You're speaking of percentages vs. absolutes. I don't agree that this is important here. 935 out of 1,000,000,000,000 is still 935. And 935 is a lot particularly when they have the same theme; they're not just a random 935 inaccuracies. You have to look at the total picture. That's what makes them relevant. Collectively, they illustrate a pattern.

Quote:
 
That would be a whole topic onto it self. But it is no secret that FDR played hard and fast with the 'turth', the war is considered the biggest propaganda war in history. But to give one easy example of FDRs improprieties; internment of Japanese Citizens that would make Gitmo a non issue.
I'm honestly not being difficult. The truth is history is not one of my strong areas. I am unaware of what you are referring to, but I accept that it's a whole other topic.

Quote:
 
Do we need better, I don’t know. I’m a realist not an idealist, I don’t know if there is even such a thing as better. And I am not certain that if we get what we think might be better whether we will come to regret it.

But should we look to get ‘better’ by putting this one administration on a pedestal and pretend it is the worst we have had? No, because if we do we will never get 'better' - because we will have ignored the real issue, the one that made many past presidents not better and not just this one.
The misleading is only one way in which I want future presidents to do better. What bothers me more than anything is that this country is a lot worse off today than Bush found it. Some of that is because of 9/11 and some of that is because of how his administration has handled it and the country's business in general. And it will likely take us a long time to recover.
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ImpulseEngine
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Dr. Noah
Jan 24 2008, 07:00 AM
If you say something that isn't true even though you believe it to be true, isn't it still a lie?

Yes, if it's presented as though it is true rather than "I believe it to be true".
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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Minuet
Jan 24 2008, 09:42 AM
Dandandat
Jan 24 2008, 09:16 AM
ImpulseEngine
Jan 23 2008, 07:21 PM
Where's your source and how is that the same?  :rolleyes:

Because some of those are false statements. Must mean the Clinton administration are just as dishonest as the current one.

Do two wrongs make a right?

The discussion of whether Bush was mistaken or if he lied is a valid one, no matter what past presidents did. Previous presidents lying does not make it ok for the current one to do so (and I am not concluding that he did).

Good point. I forgot to say that in all the replies that I just posted, but had intended to. Since you already did, I'll just leave it at that.
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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Dandandat
Jan 24 2008, 09:51 AM
There are so many questionable historical facts that if we demanded “honesty” then the world might not be where it is today. We might not be as well off as we are. How right is it for us to play the victim now?

Or we might be even better off.

"Playing victim", as you all it, is as right as it makes sense. And I think the day that we accept this is just as good as it gets and give up on trying to improve is the day that this country starts to die.
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
ImpulseEngine
Jan 24 2008, 10:32 AM
The misleading is only one way in which I want future presidents to do better. What bothers me more than anything is that this country is a lot worse off today than Bush found it. Some of that is because of 9/11 and some of that is because of how his administration has handled it and the country's business in general. And it will likely take us a long time to recover.

I don't have time to answer all of what you wrote.


But I dont accept that "this country is a lot worse off today than Bush found it." You will have to quantify this statement.
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