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    Here begins your journey into the mind of everybody's favorite asian, and I don't mean Jet Li.
What follows is the somewhat inane, mostly irrelevant, and self-important ramblings of a man on the brink of madness.
Welcome... to the Chu.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005
 Just Google It    [L]

Tired of the liberals claiming Bush misled the world into the Iraq War?

Just Google It:



Stolen with permission from Michelle Malkin



I'm not sure I'm following the logic here.

Are you saying that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they're hidden really, really, really, really well?

Or are you saying that Bush wasn't lying--just completely and totally wrong--when he said there were? I'm not sure that would really help his case much.

By Blogger Ian Dunn, at 11/16/2005 06:40:00 PM      


I'm saying that the entire world, and many Democrats in particular, had access to the same (now proven erroneous) information that the President had.

Therefore, to claim that the President was solely responsible for disseminating bad intel is especially egregious.

By Blogger ZaijiaN, at 11/16/2005 10:05:00 PM      


have you ever typed failure into Google, then clicked on "I'm feeling lucky?"

if not, try it out.

though it's not how i feel, it was good for a laugh.

By Blogger Unknown, at 11/17/2005 09:01:00 AM      


Well, I don't think anyone is claiming he's solely responsible. His administration is responsible, and since he's the figurehead of it he is one who is targeted.

And I still don't see how the democrats are somehow responsible for the invasion when they didn't support it. The fact that they saw the same information as Bush doesn't change that. It just means they were right in their assesment of the information, while the Bush admin was wrong.

By Blogger Ian Dunn, at 11/17/2005 07:07:00 PM      


Uhh.... Is it just me, or did a majority of congres (including many Democrats) vote FOR the war?

So they can't hold the Republicans responsible either.

Also, keep in mind the point of the meme - that is, that Bush did not mislead us into the war. You have a plurality of bi-partisan statements all saying the same thing Bush said, in much clearer language as well. All very plain statements, in no uncertain terms, that say Saddam is a threat, and should be taken out.

The whole Clinton-Iraq-1998 angle is meant to illustrate that even when Democrats were in power, before George Bush was even on the scene, they considered Saddam to be a threat.

By Blogger ZaijiaN, at 11/18/2005 02:01:00 AM      


Well, yeah, he was a threat... in 1998. He had WMD's... in 1998. I think the issue is more of if he was a threat in 2004.

By Blogger Ian Dunn, at 11/19/2005 09:25:00 AM      


Well, maybe if Clinton had done his job in the 90s, we wouldn't have had to do it in 2003 - think about it.

Saddam had continual UN sanctions put on him, which he habitually broke and ignored. Just about any one of those was a valid justification for military action.

And both sides of the government sure thought he was a danger in 2003 - unless you're saying that the Democrats don't really stand behind their votes, and mainly vote for political jockeying rather than political representation, which of course is entirely plausible.

So let me break it down:
1) Most of our leaders thought Saddam was a threat, based on what they believed to be good intelligence, and the believed this throughout the 90s and into the 00s.
2) Most of our leaders voted to invade and topple Saddam.
3) The lack of stockpiles of WMDs does not equal a lack of justification for entering Iraq (remember those 12 years of broken sanctions?).
4) Bush did not state that WMDs were the reason for invading - his message was that Saddam was dangerous.
5) Even though there were no "stockpiles" of WMDs, there have been many banned chemical weapons, missiles, and prohibited nuclear technologies found in Iraq.
6) Al Qaeda trained on 747 simulators in Iraq, and despite wild-assed claims to the contrary, enjoyed a level of cooperation with Iraq.

By Blogger ZaijiaN, at 11/19/2005 12:19:00 PM      


Look, I'm all for kicking that sadistic asshole out of power and trying to give the Iraqi people a representative government. But, I'm not too fond of bullshit, and trying to say that WMDs weren't the primary justification is bullshit.

For example, read this White House press release from 2002. I counted eight times that he refered to Iraq possesing WMDs. The whole thrust behind the need to invade was that Iraq was a threat because they had WMDs. But, it turns out they didn't. (They wanted to, ofcourse, but so does every wannabe dictator in the world--the point is that they didn't have any).

So we went to war, spent a whole lot of money, and got a lot of people killed over a {lie|mistake|whatever you want to call it}. I'm not saying we shouldn't have gone--I think we have a moral duty to protect human rights around the world--but we should have gone for the right reasons.

By Blogger Ian Dunn, at 11/19/2005 02:32:00 PM      


Dick Cheney: "What is not legitimate -- and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible -- is the suggestion by some U. S. senators that the President of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence.

Some of the most irresponsible comments have come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein. These are elected officials who had access to the intelligence materials. They are known to have a high opinion of their own analytical capabilities. (Laughter.) And they were free to reach their own judgments based upon the evidence. They concluded, as the President and I had concluded, and as the previous administration had concluded, that Saddam Hussein was a threat. Available intelligence indicated that the dictator of Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and this judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of many other nations, according to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb Commission. All of us understood, as well, that for more than a decade, the U.N. Security Council had demanded that Saddam Hussein make a full accounting of his weapons programs. The burden of proof was entirely on the dictator of Iraq -- not on the U.N. or the United States or anyone else. And he repeatedly refused to comply throughout the course of the decade.

Permit me to burden you with a bit more history: In August of 1998, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution urging President Clinton take "appropriate action" to compel Saddam to come into compliance with his obligations to the Security Council. Not a single senator voted no. Two months later, in October of '98 -- again, without a single dissenting vote in the United States Senate -- the Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act. It explicitly adopted as American policy supporting efforts to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power and promoting an Iraqi democracy in its place. And just two months after signing the Iraq Liberation law, President Clinton ordered that Iraq be bombed in an effort to destroy facilities that he believed were connected to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs."

Read the whole thing.

By Blogger ZaijiaN, at 11/22/2005 01:10:00 PM      


Um, that's great, but it's completely besides the point. I don't have any problem with saying that the democrats who supported the war alongside bush were wrong also. The point is, though, that Bush was wrong (whether because he intentionally lied, or because he just made a mistake). The point is that we went to war, spent a lot of money, and got a lot of people killed for what turned out to be a mistake. That's the issue, and there's really no way around it.


Kudos on the Duke Nukem reference, though ;)

By Blogger Ian Dunn, at 11/22/2005 07:02:00 PM      


Well, that's the beauty of hindsight, isn't it?

You have to make decisions based on the information you had at the time - and that information all led to the same conclusion - that Saddam had WMDs. It's irrelevant to the initial decision to invade that no stockpiles of WMDs were found. The fact of the matter is that everybody believed - and therefore, had justification.

As I said earlier, we had many justifications other than the possession of WMDs for invasion - the broken UN sanctions for the most part (don't forget they fired on our patrol planes every single day). Also, let us not forget that he was definitely attempting to possess and produce WMDs, which in itself is a justification.

By Blogger ZaijiaN, at 11/28/2005 10:12:00 AM      


Also, you must consider the options at the time:

1) Saddam has WMDs, we do not invade, and they are used on a major metropolitan US city.
1.1) 0 solidiers dead.
1.2) tens of thousands civilians dead (in the US).
1.3) Bush reviled for not acting on military intelligence.

2) Saddam has WMDs, we invade, and they are not used on a major metropolitan US city.
2.1) 2,000 soldiers dead.
2.2) 0 civilians dead (in the US).
2.3) Bush completely justified for the invasion, yet most likely reviled anyway.

3) Saddam does not have WMDs, we do not invade.
3.1) 0 soldiers dead.
3.2) 0 civilians dead (in the US).
3.3) Bush accused of not effectively prosecuting the war on terror, ignoring proven links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, and doing so at the request of his "Big Oil" buddies because war would destabilize the region and drive up the price of oil, cutting into their profit margins.
3.4) Al-Qaeda continues to find sanctuary and training in Iraq, uses it as a major staging grounds for terrorist attacks on the Western world.

4) Saddam does not have WMDs, we invade.
4.1) 2,000 soldiers dead
4.2) 0 civilians dead (in the US).
4.3) Bush accused of actively misleading the country into war, proven links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq are ignored by the mainstream media, and the invasion is thought to be at the request of Bush's "Big Oil" buddies so that they could drive up the price of oil, cutting into their profit margins.
4.4) Al-Qaeda is denied sanctuary and training in Iraq, instead they are losing thousands of members in terrorist attacks on a battle-proven army in Iraq (both US and native Iraqi), members that otherwise could've struck at other Western targets.

By Blogger ZaijiaN, at 11/28/2005 01:58:00 PM      


^^^ speak up ^^^