Show some guts and meet with Cindy Sheehan. I'm not referring to the tough-guy sound bite, "Dead or Alive" or "Bring-em on" sort of guts. I am talking about having the guts to answer some legitimate questions from a good American mother who will never see her good American son again. I can undersatnd that some of those questions will be difficult or uncomfortable for you to answer, but sometimes that's what it takes when you're the big guy.
Show some guts and meet with Cindy Sheehan. I'm not referring to the tough-guy sound bite, "Dead or Alive" or "Bring-em on" sort of guts. I am talking about having the guts to answer some legitimate questions from a good American mother who will never see her good American son again. I can undersatnd that some of those questions will be difficult or uncomfortable for you to answer, but sometimes that's what it takes when you're the big guy.
While I feel for her, even her family has issued a statement saying that she should put this to an end as she is way off base and just wrong.
Imagine this:
It's April, 2004, and you get word that your son is KIA in Iraq. You've just been hit with the single most worst piece of news imaginable for you to ever hear. Your mind goes into a sort of shock that only extreme grief can bring about. Two months later, the president summons you to the White House for his phony grief counseling routine that he does.
A year or so goes by and the fog of grief begins to lift. In the year, it has become obvious through several revelations that Bush lied about almost every reason for this war. Your grief turns to anger and now you want answers from the chicken-hawk who sent your son to his death for a set of lies.
That is Cindy, as well as many other mothers, fathers, wives, children and family members.
The family members of Cindy who disagree are her in-laws with whom she hasn't been getting along with for some time.
I've had some communication with Cindy a couple of months ago, well before this Camp Crawford thing came about. She is the real deal and she is showing Bush to be the cardboard cowboy he really is. He should take a lesson about true guts from someone like Cindy.
The President is busy. What questions does this ignorant bitch have? I will answer them for her. Afterwards, I have a few questions for her.
Here is an example of how busy the leader of the free world is:
Bush attends Little League championship
NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press
WACO, Texas - President Bush relived some of his childhood Saturday night when he attended a Little League playoff game near his ranch.
The world's most powerful former Little Leaguer watched several innings while players from Bryant, Ark., and Lafayette, La., competed for the southwestern regional championship.
Bush welcomed the players, coaches and families to Texas from the pitcher's mound. He then threw out the ceremonial first pitch and watched from behind home plate with the first lady and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"Play hard, play fair, play to win," he said. "God bless you all and may God continue to bless our great country."
Bush is the first former Little League player to be elected president, having played as a kid for the Cubs of Midland, Texas, said the league's CEO and president Steve Keener.
Bush attended the Little League World Series in 2001 and hosts T-ball games each summer on the White House lawn. Keener said he is the first president to attend one of the league's regional championships.
The game was being played just about 20 miles from the ranch where Bush is spending the month of August. Bush traveled to the game by helicopter, missing the throng of anti-war protesters gathered on the country road leading to his ranch.
The demonstrations began a week ago when California mom Cindy Sheehan came demanding to personally ask Bush about why her son had to die last year while fighting for the Army in Iraq.
More than 350 anti-war demonstrators rallied at a park in nearby Crawford Saturday in support of Sheehan, then traveled several miles out to her roadside campsite.
About a dozen Bush supporters stood across the street, kept apart from the anti-war group by sheriff's deputies and Secret Service agents.
Show some guts and meet with Cindy Sheehan. I'm not referring to the tough-guy sound bite, "Dead or Alive" or "Bring-em on" sort of guts. I am talking about having the guts to answer some legitimate questions from a good American mother who will never see her good American son again. I can undersatnd that some of those questions will be difficult or uncomfortable for you to answer, but sometimes that's what it takes when you're the big guy.
Do you ever post on anything about Vipers??? Your stupid political left wing views are so out of line. That's all you ever post about. Get over it your weak kneed sorry excuse for a political party lost. You think the President really gives a shit what you think about him??????? If I were him I wouldn't. Get a life and talk about something else for a change. Your an embarrassment to your party.
You think the President really gives a shit what you think about him???????
No I don't. In fact, I don't think the president gives a shit about what anyone thinks out side of his own circle of friends and sycophants. That is a major part of the problem.
Your just another political demoncat whore for the left. Have you ever just stopped and looked how fucked up your party is?
Did you just call me a demoncat? I've got to think about that one!
If you've been reading my rantings long enough, you would know that I have no great love for the Democrats. What motivates me and my bluster the fact that the man in the White House is lying piece of shit that has gotten away with more abuses of the American system than I am willing to quietly tolerate. It just so happens that he is a Republican. Therefore by default, I find myself more closely aligned with the Democrats than with the Republicans.
Did you just call me a demoncat? I've got to think about that one!
If you've been reading my rantings long enough, you would know that I have no great love for the Democrats. What motivates me and my bluster the fact that the man in the White House is lying piece of shit that has gotten away with more abuses of the American system than I am willing to quietly tolerate. It just so happens that he is a Republican. Therefore by default, I find myself more closely aligned with the Democrats than with the Republicans.
You have no proof that he's lied about anything. Only the liberal publications that you subscribe to. So you align yourself with fags, feminist, socialist, communist, people like clinton that disgrace the office of the president, naacp, peta, Sorros, michael moore, allah, radical islam, political correctness, peace freaks who would rather turn their head and run rather than fight, draft dodgers, fake military hero's "aka kerry", hollywood, etc............... that's a nice crowd.
Mike,
I don't understand why all your anger is directed at GW. Before the war, everyone, even your goddess Hillary was stating that it was clear there were WMD in Iraq. They were all wrong. Congress (including your ideological identical twin Ted Kennedy) authorized the use of force against Iraq, not just GW. The Demos couldn't even field a candidate to beat GW in the second election despite his poor approval ratings. Why blame GW for all this? If you are angry, I would think half the blame should be levied at the Democratic leadership. I know in todays society, the trend is to try and shift the blame to others but I think you and your compatriots (Ted, Hillary, etc) need to take a close look in the mirror and accept that you are as much to blame. I think Iraq is a bold and maybe reckless experiment that may be an utter failure or could be the birth of democracy in the middle east, that might change the face of history. Either way, GW will be much more remembered than B Clinton..... hopefully as the person who brought peace to the middle east.
Personally, I think we might be better to stay our of all other countries affairs, financially and militarily. The billions we give to other countries, such as in Africa, directly result in the deaths of Americans as it takes away from health care, medical research and funding for education. Everything we do has a price.
In February 2001, the CIA delivered a report to the White House that said: “We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs.” The report was so definitive that Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a subsequent press conference, Saddam Hussein “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”
Ten months before the president’s speech, an intelligence review by CIA Director George Tenet contained not a single mention of an imminent nuclear threat—or capability—from Iraq. The CIA was backed up by Bush’s own State Department: Around the time Bush gave his speech, the department’s intelligence bureau said that evidence did not “add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what [we] consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons.”
2.They knew the aluminum tubes were not for nuclear weapons.
To back up claims that Iraq was actively trying to build nuclear weapons, the administration referred to Iraq’s importation of aluminum tubes, which Bush officials said were for enriching uranium. In December 2002, Powell said, “Iraq has tried to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes which can be used to enrich uranium in centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program.” Similarly, in his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said Iraq “has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.”
But, in October 2002, well before these and other administration officials made this claim, two key agencies told the White House exactly the opposite. The State Department affirmed reports from Energy Department experts who concluded those tubes were ill-suited for any kind of uranium enrichment. And according to memos released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the State Department also warned Powell not to use the aluminum tubes hypothesis in the days before his February 2003 U.N. speech. He refused and used the aluminum tubes claim anyway.
3.They knew the Iraq-uranium claims were not supported.
In one of the most famous statements about Iraq’s supposed nuclear arsenals, Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The careful phrasing of this statement highlights how dishonest it was. By attributing the claim to an allied government, the White House made a powerful charge yet protected itself against any consequences should it be proved false. In fact, the president invoked the British because his own intelligence experts had earlier warned the White House not to make the claim at all.
In the fall of 2002, the CIA told administration officials not to include this uranium assertion in presidential speeches. Specifically, the agency sent two memos to the White House and Tenet personally called top national security officials imploring them not to use the claim. While the warnings forced the White House to remove a uranium reference from an October 2002 presidential address, they did not stop the charge from being included in the 2003 State of the Union.
Not surprisingly, evidence soon emerged that forced the White House to admit the deception. In March 2003, IAEA Director Mohammed El Baradei said there was no proof Iraq had nuclear weapons and added “documents which formed the basis for [the White House’s assertion] of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic.”
4.They knew there was no hard evidence of chemical or biological weapons.
In September 2002, President Bush said Iraq “could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.” The next month, he delivered a major speech to “outline the Iraqi threat,” just two days before a critical U.N. vote. In his address, he claimed without doubt that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.” He said that “Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons” and that the government was “concerned Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.”
What he did not say was that the White House had been explicitly warned that these assertions were unproved.
As the Washington Post later reported, Bush “ignored the fact that U.S. intelligence mistrusted the source” of the 45-minute claim and, therefore, omitted it from its intelligence estimates. And Bush ignored the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency previously submitted a report to the administration finding “no reliable information” to prove Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons. According to Newsweek, the conclusion was similar to the findings of a 1998 government commission on WMD chaired by Rumsfeld.
Bush also neglected to point out that in early October 2002, the administration’s top military experts told the White House they “sharply disputed the notion that Iraq’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles were being designed as attack weapons.” Specifically, the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center correctly showed the drones in question were too heavy to be used to deploy chemical/biological-weapons spray devices.
Regardless, the chemical/biological weapons claims from the administration continued to escalate. Powell told the United Nations on February 5, 2003, “There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.” As proof, he cited aerial images of a supposed decontamination vehicle circling a suspected weapons site.
According to newly released documents in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Powell’s own top intelligence experts told him not to make such claims about the photographs. They said the vehicles were likely water trucks. He ignored their warnings.
On March 6, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, the president went further than Powell. He claimed, “Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents.”
To date, no chemical or biological weapons have been found in Iraq.
5.They knew Saddam and bin Laden were not collaborating.
In the summer of 2002, USA Today reported White House lawyers had concluded that establishing an Iraq-al Qaeda link would provide the legal cover at the United Nations for the administration to attack Iraq. Such a connection, no doubt, also would provide political capital at home. And so, by the fall of 2002, the Iraq-al Qaeda drumbeat began.
It started on September 25, 2002, when Bush said, “you can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam.” This was news even to members of Bush’s own political party who had access to classified intelligence. Just a month before, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Saddam is not in league with al Qaeda … I have not seen any intelligence that would lead me to connect Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.
To no surprise, the day after Bush’s statement, USA Today reported several intelligence experts “expressed skepticism” about the claim, with a Pentagon official calling the president’s assertion an “exaggeration.” No matter, Bush ignored these concerns and that day described Saddam Hussein as “a man who loves to link up with al Qaeda.” Meanwhile, Rumsfeld held a press conference trumpeting “bulletproof” evidence of a connection—a sentiment echoed by Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. And while the New York Times noted, “the officials offered no details to back up the assertions,” Rumsfeld nonetheless insisted his claims were “accurate and not debatable.”
Within days, the accusations became more than just “debatable”; they were debunked. German Defense Minister Peter Stuck said the day after Rumsfeld’s press conference that his country “was not aware of any connection” between Iraq and al Qaeda’s efforts to acquire chemical weapons. The Orlando Sentinel reported that terrorism expert Peter Bergen—one of the few to actually interview Osama bin Laden—said the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda are minimal. In October 2002, Knight Ridder reported, “a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in [Bush’s] own government privately have deep misgivings” about the Iraq-al Qaeda claims. The experts charged that administration hawks “exaggerated evidence.” A senior U.S. official told the Philadelphia Inquirer that intelligence analysts “contest the administration’s suggestion of a major link between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
6.They knew there was no Prague meeting.
One of the key pillars of the Iraq-al Qaeda myth was a White House-backed story claiming 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi spy in April 2001. The tale originally came from a lone Czech informant who said he saw the terrorist in Prague at the time. White House hawks, eager to link al Qaeda with Saddam, did not wait to verify the story, and instead immediately used it to punch up arguments for a preemptive attack on Iraq. On November 14, 2001, Cheney claimed Atta was “in Prague in April of this year, as well as earlier.” On December 9, 2001, he went further, claiming without proof that the Atta meeting was “pretty well confirmed.”
Nine days later, the Czech government reported there was no evidence that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. Czech Police Chief Jiri Kolar said there were no documents showing Atta had been in Prague that entire year, and Czech officials told Newsweek that the uncorroborated witness who perpetuated the story should have been viewed with more skepticism.
By the spring of 2002, major news publications such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek and Time were running stories calling the “Prague connection” an “embarrassing” mistake and stating that, according to European officials, the intelligence supporting the claim was “somewhere between ‘slim’ and ‘none’.” The stories also quoted administration officials and CIA and FBI analysts saying that on closer scrutiny, “there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the United State at the time he was supposed to be in Prague.” Even FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, a Bush political appointee, admitted in April 2002, “We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts,” but found nothing.
Conclusion: They knew they were misleading America.
In his March 17, 2003 address preparing America for the Iraq invasion, President Bush stated unequivocally that there was an Iraq-al Qaeda nexus and that there was “no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
In the context of what we now know the White House knew at the time, Bush was deliberately dishonest. The intelligence community repeatedly told the White House there were many deep cracks in its case for war. The president’s willingness to ignore such warnings and make these unequivocal statements proves the administration was intentionally painting a black-and-white picture when it knew the facts merited only gray at best.
Take your time to digest those lies one at a time. Then, take another look at them in the light cast by the Downing Street memos. If you can sincerely dismiss all of those as honest mistakes, you must be a nitwit.
Also, you have the audacity talk about fake military heros? Find me one authentic military hero in the all of the high-ranking officials of the Bush administration. Just one? Powell doesn't count because he's (wisely) gone.
Mike,
I don't understand why all your anger is directed at GW. Before the war, everyone, even your goddess Hillary was stating that it was clear there were WMD in Iraq. They were all wrong. Congress (including your ideological identical twin Ted Kennedy) authorized the use of force against Iraq, not just GW. The Demos couldn't even field a candidate to beat GW in the second election despite his poor approval ratings. Why blame GW for all this? If you are angry, I would think half the blame should be levied at the Democratic leadership. I know in todays society, the trend is to try and shift the blame to others but I think you and your compatriots (Ted, Hillary, etc) need to take a close look in the mirror and accept that you are as much to blame. I think Iraq is a bold and maybe reckless experiment that may be an utter failure or could be the birth of democracy in the middle east, that might change the face of history. Either way, GW will be much more remembered than B Clinton..... hopefully as the person who brought peace to the middle east.
Personally, I think we might be better to stay our of all other countries affairs, financially and militarily. The billions we give to other countries, such as in Africa, directly result in the deaths of Americans as it takes away from health care, medical research and funding for education. Everything we do has a price.
My anger is primarily directed at the President and his people because I believe it was their intent to deliberately mislead congress, America, and the world. I also to a lesser degree blame congress and the majority of the American people for allowing themselves to be sleepwalked into a war that shouldn't have been started. I blame them for placing too much trust in a man who was not really worthy of that trust. Much of that blame falls squarely on the Democrats as well for nodding in agreement when they should have been lo
I've got to think about that one!