Monday was an Amazing Day and many people have many memories, emotions and various thoughts to share. For a moment, just a moment, we had various Presidents, Clinton, Bush and Obama standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity, not in bitter partisan angst. The day after, this morning, Joe Scarborough attempted to make a point about this moment, and ended up tripping directly into a puddle of hard partisan goop.
And then Mika had to dare to mention that Bush had told us to "Go Shopping" - and it was like lighting a bottle-rocket under Joe Scarborough.
Joe's basic point that we should simply appreciate the efforts of our President, regardless of party, and be happy that they've done the best they could under the circumstances to keep Americans safe without bickering over the details is on it's face a fair point.
But then when he uses examples saying that what we should put aside for once, is on the one hand the fact that Bush invaded the wrong Country, and on the other hand People Say Obama is a Muslim simply doesn't square.
One thing is a FACT, the other is a Lie.
If you can listen to the full audio because it's rather remarkable. When Tavis Smiley brings up the point that the Bush Administration Lied to the American People in order to pursue a War of choice... everyone else, EVERYONE, even Mark Halperin (he who called President Obama a "Dick") argue that it's wasn't a "Lie" it was a "Mistake".
To quote TIm Robbins, I would say that was a whole lot of Fuck Up!
But even though Mark is a Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist, the fact that he doesn't know how the Bush Administration manipulated evidence to specifically distort the facts and make a false case to the American people is pathetic. Just look at the 16 Words, and Cheney's recent claim that "It was all true".
It was all true that the British believe Saddam might be trying to get Yellowcake Uranium from Niger, yet it was also true that the U.S. State Dept and CIA believe the Niger receipt was a forgery and that when Joe Wilson went to Niger he confirmed that even though Baghdad Bob did meet with some minister from Niger the subject of Yellowcake Never even Came Up during their meeting.
And Halperin doesn't know this? What. The. FUCK!?
I'll tell you something, I was up at nearly 4 am (Pacific Time) and was watching the 9/11 Ceremony almost from the beginning, and I noticed that within a couple moment of George W. Bush speaking a set of cheers and whistles came from the crowd of 9/11 Families.
At the time I tried to ignore it from a Partisan standpoint, even though it created a pit in my stomach to hear, I thought well - that was "Their President". That was the man that stood on the pile and for a brief moment drew the nation together with one purpose, moving in one direction.
And then he squandered it. He wasted it.
Krugman is absolutely right that 9/11 became the first moment in our Era of Shame.
If fact, Shame is the least we should feel.
As I posted when Rumsfeld released his book, the Intelligence wasn't Wrong - the Bushies Were.
Yes, the claim that Saddam was trying to get Yellowcake was a Lie based in a Forgery.
Yss, the claim that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda was a Lie produced by the torture of Ibn Sheik al Libi in Egypt.
Yes, the claim that Saddam had mobile labs and viles of Anthrax was a Lie provided by a known fabricator code-named "Curve-ball" who his german handlers didn't trust and neither did Europeon CIA Chief Tyler Drumheller.
Each and every person that tried to tell the Bushies the TRUTH, from Drumheller, to Iraqi Intelligence Head Habbush who told us flat-out that Saddam had destroyed his weapons stockpiles way back in the 90s' was either ignored, paid off, buried beneath piles of classification (on the shelf of someone's Man Sized Safe?) or crusshed the way they tried to literally destroy like Joe and Valerie Wilson.
This right here is NOT a Dramatization... it's NOT Fiction.
In fact, for a fee, they had Habbush generate yet another lie, forging a letter that Saddam had trained members of Al Qaeda on the use of Chemical Weapons.
From the LA. Times.
The claim was made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose book "The Way of the World" also contends that the White House obtained compelling evidence in early 2003 that Iraq possessed no significant stocks of nuclear or biological weapons but decided to invade anyway.
The book's most contentious allegations involve Tahir Jalil Habbush, Hussein's intelligence chief before the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. As the deadline for war neared, U.S. and British officials met with Habbush and confronted him about weapons of mass destruction.
In those secret meetings, Habbush explained why United Nations inspectors had been unable to find evidence of active Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs: There weren't any, Suskind writes. Habbush's accounts were shared with the CIA and the White House, where they were dismissed as deception.
After the invasion, Habbush was paid $5 million by the CIA for serving as an informant, and resettled in Jordan. It was then, Suskind writes, that the White House enlisted his help with a forgery -- one suggesting a link between Hussein's government and Mohamed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Suskind states that in September 2003, the White House directed then-CIA Director George J. Tenet to concoct a fake letter, backdated to July 2001, claiming that Atta had trained in Iraq for his mission. Habbush agreed to sign the letter, which was leaked to a British journalist in December 2003, Suskind writes.
Yes, of course the Bush White House has denied involvement in helping craft the Habbush letter, yet here it is.
Watching all these learned journalists literally berate and Shout Down Tavis Smiley for saying that the Iraq War was a A LIE, is a pathetic disgrace. It's a travesty.
It wasn't "A Mistake", it was the willful deliberate maintenance of a pig-headed delusion.
Yes, Dammit - The Iraq War Was A LIE!
Vyan
5:41 PM PT: Nearing the end of the day at work so I'm popping in to point out that I didn't even mention the Downing Street Memos (h/t Comments).
In the first the British Foreign Minister ("C") reported to Prime Minister Blair.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
The second was even more explicit, where Bush considered a False Flag operation to provoke Saddam into attacking (what would appear to be) UN Forces.
George Bush considered provoking a war with Saddam Hussein's regime by flying a United States spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours, enticing the Iraqis to take a shot at it, according to a leaked memo of a meeting between the US President and Tony Blair.
The two leaders were worried by the lack of hard evidence that Saddam Hussein had broken UN resolutions, though privately they were convinced that he had. According to the memorandum, Mr Bush said: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."
If the evidence that Saddam was a threat was so clear, why concoct this setup? Why forge the Habbush Letter? Why the Niger Forgery? Why ignore Drumheller? Why Crucify Joe Wilson and blow the cover of a CIA Operative?
Simple: to perpetuate a Deluded Lie, that Saddam was an imminent threat when he wasn't anymore. What should've happened to Saddam is exactly what's happening to Qaddiffi right now. His own people should have shoved him out, and if we had paid attention to the Weapons Inspectors and let them finish their work, instead of ignoring them when they said our WMD "Intel" (as stove-pipped by Feith and Libby) was Garbage after Garbage, the insurgents who rose up against us, would and could have Gone After Saddam Instead.
Just like the Arab Spring in Egypt, minus the Million Dead Iraqis.