Pace Declares 'Sea Change' in Iraq

[Plane]

"...........and a flood of lies ....."

Hahahahahaha!

[Michael Tee]

You and a handful of others are probably the only ones laughing by now, but that's OK, I think most people have finally realized what was going on.  There are always gonna be some guys who never get it.

[Plane]

You and a handful of others are probably the only ones laughing by now, but that's OK, I think most people have finally realized what was going on.  There are always gonna be some guys who never get it.

"Flood of lies"?

What is to get?

There was no flood of lies , you have lots of troubble presenting even a trickle.

[Michael Tee]

<<"Flood of lies"?

<<What is to get?>>

What's to get is that the Administration lied you into a war that has turned into a disaster.

<<There was no flood of lies , you have lots of troubble presenting even a trickle.>>

Oh, the lies are easy to find and most people now have no trouble at all identifying them as such.  The only problem is the odd right-wing die-hard who finds new ways to twist the words so that the lies which were so obvious to everyone now acquire totally different meanings from their plain and common-sense meanings, and so one die-hard can convince another that, no, this really was not a lie because it has a whole different meaning which nobody but us die-hards can see.

[BT]

Oh, the lies are easy to find and most people now have no trouble at all identifying them as such.  The only problem is the odd right-wing die-hard who finds new ways to twist the words so that the lies which were so obvious to everyone now acquire totally different meanings from their plain and common-sense meanings, and so one die-hard can convince another that, no, this really was not a lie because it has a whole different meaning which nobody but us die-hards can see.

Perhaps you are confusing the numbers of people disinterested in the truth with the actual truth itself.

[Michael Tee]

<<Perhaps you are confusing the numbers of people disinterested in the truth with the actual truth itself. >>

What I sometimes confuse is Debategate life with real life.  In real life, I read a paper and throw it away.  I watch the news and go to bed.  And I remember what I read and what I watched.  I don't make notes, I don't clip quotes, I discuss the news with colleagues, friends and family without keeping records of our discussions.  And I remember.  In a sort of general fashion.

What I remember is this.  Sometime after 9-11, articles began appearing in the New York Times and conservative venues (and reprinted in the Toronto papers) about a threat from Saddam Hussein.  Very scary stuff.  Nuclear weapons programs.  Poison gas.  Biological weapons.  Then guys (and a very small number of women) began appearing on TV to talk more about this same God-awful threat.  Most of them seemed to be Jews.  A lot of the articles seemed to be written by Jews.  I didn't pay much attention at first because I figured all these folks just had it in for Saddam Hussein.  They'd love to see Saddam eaten alive by wild dogs, why?  Because Saddam was paying $25,000 U.S. to the families of suicide bombers.  He was in effect (as a lot of right-wing Jews saw this) offering money to people to go out and kill Jews at random.  (That's not the way I saw it, because they weren't killing Jews at random, they were killing them in Israel and the West Bank, and it was war - - a war of unequal war resources where the suicide bomber was the poor man's F-16.  And my solution to the war was to offer a just division of the land, not try to kill all those who objected to one side hogging it all.)  Soon the politicians were talking about this "threat" from Iraq as well.  Now I saw it was becoming serious.  It looked like Bush wanted to invade but the Europeans and a lot of unempowered Americans were against the project.

How did I react at the time?  I thought it was ridiculous.  In the first place because every sovereign nation has the right to arm itself as it sees fit.  How could the U.S.A. with the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world, and a little Middle-Eastern sidekick like Israel with another 400 nukes, raise any valid objection to Iraq arming itself?  Even more importantly, the idea that Iraq could threaten the U.S. in any way was, and remains to this day, patently absurd.  Only a lunatic could even conceive of the possibility.  Of all the lies of the Bush administration, that was the one Big Lie, the one Goebbels was talking about when he said that if you told a lie that was really, really outrageous, the very biggest lie you could think of, for some reason nobody would question it.  I was not opposed in principle to the U.N. as a world body regulating some of Iraq's aggressiveness, but in fact the U.N. was content to take less aggressive measures and work things out over time - - as were the Europeans.  And the Canadians, for what THAT'S worth.

So I remember Bush, and Cheney, and Rumsfeld and even Colin Powell and their military explain the case for an invasion, basically how "surgical" the bombing would be this time, how long the whole operation might take.  The minimal casualties, especially the minimal civilian casualties.  (Which I knew even then had to be another lie.)  The only specific memory I have from those days is Condi's famous "mushroom cloud" remark and something from Blair that his intelligence indicated that Saddam's missiles were loaded and ready to be fired on 15 minutes (or was it 45 minutes) notice, presumably at British or maybe even U.S. targets.  I also specifically remember the "We'll be welcomed as liberators" comment, with some embellishments I believe.  Something about flowers or rose petals.

My general memories of those days is that this would be a quick operation because the entire Iraqi population was sick to death of Saddam Hussein but so terrorized by his reign of torture that they were helpless.  I don't specifically remember Rumsfeld's remark that it would be six days or six weeks but not six months.  I must have heard or read it, but it was part of a huge volume of lies and bullshit that were being dumped all over America and that one does not stand out - - however it is very consistent with everything I remember.  That the Iraqi people were with "us" (America) and that this whole thing would be a cakewalk.

That was real life.  That's how I remember it.

Now we have Debategate life.  I come in here and there are people who tell me that everything I remember just did not happen.  That sure, there were predictions made that overthrowing Saddam's regime would be easy but that staying on thereafter might be very hard.  I never heard that.  I know it never happened.    But in Debategate World, memory counts for nothing, quotations and sources count for everything.  So, like a schmuck, I diligently go and seek out the sources.  I mean, I'm not crazy, I didn't imagine all of this, and if it happened in public media, there must be a public record of it, right?  Right.  And there is.  There IS a public record of it.  I find the sources.  No surprises there.  Why shouldn't I find them?  Bring 'em back to the group and what do I get?  "Well, that's what it SAYS but that's not what it MEANS.  It MEANS this, it means that, it means everything except what it says right on the face of it and what I myself remember from hearing that same stuff or other stuff just like it at the time.

Moreover, it couldn't possibly have meant what these right-wing fruitbats claim it means, because nobody who was trying to convince the American people to go to war would have said what the fruitbats now claim they said at the time.   Can any sane individual seriously conceive of Bush or one of his lying criminal ratpack telling the American people, as the fruitbats now claim he did, "Yo, taking out Saddam is the easy part but after that we'll have to keep about 150,000 troops there for four years at the very least while the country sinks into civil war and we ship back 25,000 wounded and 3,500 dead, but we gotta do it because those Iraqis really really really want democracy?"  That is NOT how to convince a country to go to war, and Bush & Co., being the natural snake-oil salesmen that they are, told the people whatever story they needed to hear to get them on board.  That was NOT the fruitbat version.

Anyway, I've vented enough.  I put too much energy into these surrealistic discussions. I'm done.

[Plane]

So in the real world you just never listen to the US President at all?

In the State of the Union speech before the invasion of Iraq the President himself stated that he expected the fight would be long.

Your memory doesn't agree with mine , so sorces become usefull to reveil wht one or the other of us was igoreing at the time.

The retoric on the subject of Saddam Husseins threat predates the Present administration , and is not all from Jews ,this can be fond in objective sorces .

[Michael Tee]

Yes of course I listen to the speeches of the "President" in the real world.  One of my memories is asking myself as he was speaking, "How can he have the God-damn fucking NERVE to utter such lies and bullshit to the American people?"  His state of the Union speech did NOT make any reference (beyond a token "days of mourning" reference - - well, hell, SOMEBODY was gonna have to die in the invasion) to any of the hardships, etc.  It pretty well sugar-coated everything related to Iraq.  Here it is (the Iraq part) - -

 
 <<Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make. The technologies of war have changed; the risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. [This is the most minimal acknowledgment of sacrifice possible - - "I can't say that NOBODY is gonna get killed."]  This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

<<We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means -- sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military -- and we will prevail.                    [The United States of America will prevail against a Third World nation of 23 million] Applause.)

<<And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies -- and freedom. (Applause.)  [already telling them what he's gonna do AFTER the victory}

<<Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril; from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

<<Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time.    [another promise of victory] Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

<<Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. [God's on our side.]  (Applause.)

<<We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone.   [God's on our side.]  We do not know -- we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, [God's on our side.]  placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. [God's on our side, God's on our side, God's on our side.]

<<May He guide us now. [God's on our side.]  And may God continue to bless the United States of America. [and in case I forgot to mention this, God's on our side.]  (Applause.)>>

This was only one speech.  True enough, there was nothing in this one speech that expressly said, "It'll be a cakewalk, they'll welcome us with flowers as liberators, etc."  It did not have to be mentioned.  The groundwork was already laid.  In all of the pre-war publicity campaign, including the MSM, including the stories leaked to Judith Miller and faithfully retailed by her, including the right-wing talk-show hosts, the NYT, the 6-days-6weeks-6-months remarks of Rumsfeld, the "welcomed as liberators" BS, the campaign had done its work well.

What I remember is what happened.  A deluge of lies and bullshit - - this would be a cakewalk, welcomed as liberators, 6 weeks, etc.  THOSE were the lies.  Saddam is a threat to the U.S.A.  THAT, of course, was the Big Lie.

And guess what, plane?  No, I specifically didn't remember any particular thing the "President" said in his State of the Union speech, but when I looked it up - - thanks for the suggestion - - it didn't reinforce YOUR memory of those events, it reinforced MINE.

[Michael Tee]

POSTSCRIPT:

Note also that in his very first paragraph specifically dealing with making war on Iraq, in the third sentence he is already implicitly  promising victory.