Stop Blaming Bush’s Lies About WMD’s to justify your refusal to believe in Russian meddling today
July 23, 2018

 
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Few things anger me more than people who lie about easily provable truths in order to push a political agenda… except maybe for the people who willingly believe those lies w/o checking them out because it suits THEIR agenda. Some of the worst are people who post memes… false quotes, doctored photos, cherry-picked statistics… on Facebook & Twitter. I have literally spent hours on Facebook debunking false memes posted by pro-Trump Conservatives (just like the Bush years.) And right now, one that truly annoys me are all the people who simply refuse to believe Russia meddled in the 2016 election on the grounds that “the same sources told us Iraq had WMD’s too!” They reject out-of-hand any recognized news outfit that dares contradict Trump’s insane “everyone who disagrees with me is Fake News” narrative. Every legitimate, responsible journalistic outfit (New York Times, The Washington Post, any network or cable news)… even the NON-legitimate Conservative water-carriers over at Fox “news” who worked overtime to convince us we could trust Bush on WMD’s, today acknowledge the evidence of election tampering by Russia. Critics deride The Gray Lady as “fake news” and cite absurd spurious questionable websites (and yes, I get the irony, but I backup EVERY claim with at least one link) that are as credible as Aunt May’s bunion is at predicting the weather. “You can’t trust CNN or MSNBC” but “you CAN trust RT [Russia Today]!” Uh… riiiiight! Because THEY don’t have a dog in this fight??? The fact is, most news & intelligence agencies did NOT report as fact Iraq/Saddam had WMD’s. In fact, many had serious doubts. Time Magazine published an interview with former weapons inspector (and lead critic of the case for war) Scott Ritter. CNN ran a story claiming “Most experts agree Iraq has tons of chemical weapons” but the only “experts” they could find worked in the Bush White House. British newspaper The Guardian reported there was “considerable doubt” that Iraq actually possessed what was claimed. And note the corner photo above of millions of people around the globe who were not convinced of the danger the politicians were insisting we were in. The Bush Administration actually attempted to link Saddam to 9/11 ON 9/11. It took them 18 months to finally convince enough people that their claims were true before they finally got the green light to invade Iraq on March 19, 2003. That’s because the Media WASN’T rallying behind them on the need for war.

On September 11, 2001, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote on a note that we need to “Hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same timenot only UBL [bin laden]” and use 9/11 to “Sweep it all up. Thing [sic] related & not.” Yet it STILL took until March of 2003 to invade Iraq. Why? If all of our intelligence agencies were saying Iraq had WMD’s, and a compliant GOP controlled BOTH houses of Congress, why did it still take 18 months to convince enough people to support the invasion of Iraq on the grounds they possessed WMD’s? Because there WASN’T a consensus among our intelligence agencies.

Those of you old enough to remember the events 14 years ago, plenty of people were questioning the Bush Administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein possessed “vast quantities” of “chemical & biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons.” THE DAY BEFORE Bush’s invasion of Iraq, the New York Times published: “Bush Clings To Dubious Allegations About Iraq”. “Dubious?” Why would they call the Bush Administration’s claims “dubious” if they were pushing for war? This is the same “mainstream media” Russia-gate deniers now say we can’t trust today because they lied to us about WMD’s. Among the many reports of doubt published, former U.S. Ambassador to the region, Joe Wilson famously rebuked (see linked photo: hand written notes are Cheney targeting Wilson’s wife) Bush’s infamous 2003 State of the Union claim that Saddam had purchased “20,000 tons of yellow-cake uranium from Africa” in an Op/Ed published in the NYTimes, stating matter-of-factly that there was NO way Bush’s claim was true. Among numerous reasons given, he pointed out there was just no way to transport such a massive amount of material on the tiny, muddy, unpaved dirt roads in Niger. Nor did they have any means by which to excavate such a massive amount of deadly material, no one witnessed any such massive excavation/transport of such material, nobody worked on any such project, and the mines showed no evidence of such activity, concluding (rightly) that there simply was no truth to the frightening claim President Bush made during his address. And just like with Trump, the only way for Dick Cheney to nullify Wilson’s report was to declare it “fake news”. VP Cheney exposed the fact Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA (endangering her life and anyone she may have worked with, burning an entire established CIA front organization that took years to develop) all in an effort to discredit Wilson’s op/ed as “lies” being spread by the CIA because they were “out to get” President Bush. Seriously. And Bush’s supporters rallied in support of President Bush against the evil CIA (which admittedly wasn’t a tough sell… though to this day no one has ever explained WHY they would want to do that.) Today, Trump tells everyone we can’t trust our own intelligence agencies… not just the CIA but the FBI, the DIA, the NSA or foreign intelligence like MI6. Bush forced our intelligence agencies to back up his baseless beliefs by feeding them false information. And you KNOW if Trump could do the same, he would. They won’t so he’s throwing a tantrum.

It took Cheney repeatedly flying to CIA headquarters in Langley, VA pushing them to produce “proof” that Saddam had WMD’s (what was later referred to as “stove-piping”.) Why was it necessary for Cheney to repeatedly fly down to CIA headquarters and push to produce evidence they did not have if they were already complicit in making the case for war? Because THEY WEREN’T. They were NOT telling the Bush neocons what they wanted to hear. It took Secretary of State Collin Powell’s now infamous United Nations slideshow to finally convince enough Americans that Saddam posed “an imminent threat”, instigating our first ever “First Strike” war.

So when I hear people today telling me they absolutely refuse to believe Russia meddled in our election (despite all the evidence) because the Media and our intelligence agencies lied about WMD’s because “they want to start another war”, that just isn’t the case. The biggest (I’ll generously call) “manipulator of the truth” was the Bush Administration. It wasn’t The Media or our Intelligence Agencies that were lying to advance their agenda. The only people with a motive to lie today are the same people who were the only ones with a motive to lie 14 years ago: the White House.

Trump routinely dismisses every inconvenient fact by simply calling it “Fake News!” It’s incredibly convenient. You don’t have to produce any evidence to contradict any claim, just say your accusers are not to be trusted. Say everyone is simply out to get you. “They’re just bitter because they lost!” Lie about known facts & evidence. Even claim photographs and audio tape of yourself is manufactured even when you KNOW it wasn’t (“Who ya gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes/ears?”) Trump’s entire life, growing up as a privileged rich kid, then the CEO Of his own company, no one ever dare tell him “No” or called him “a liar”. No one ever punished him or dare confront him when he was wrong. Children raised to lie with impunity continue doing so throughout their lives. Trump was able to get away with that as a child, or when he ran his own private companies (who’s going to tell the boss he’s wrong?) This is the first time in Trump’s life anyone has corrected him. He has an army of reporters fact-checking his every word in real time and he just doesn’t know how to handle it (other than to just accuse them all of lying. The way a child would.) “They ALL said I was going to lose in a landslide! They were wrong! How can you trust them now?” says Trump. It’s a convincing message if you’re a Trump fan who really wants to believe the majority of Americans think/feel like they do. And when those same reporters uncover evidence that the only reason Trump won was because he had help, you can dismiss that too. “They were wrong then, so they must be wrong now, right?” Unless they were Right back then and are Right now. All the evidence favors the latter. Trump’s loose relationship with the truth and questionable past business dealings don’t help matters any (for him at least.)

I‘ve often revealed to people that I used to be a Republican. I also used to be a devote believer in UFO’s. I stopped believing in both for the same reason: Every time I checked out something I was told was true, 90% of the time it turned out to be total crap. “This photo absolutely shows an unexplained UFO.” No, it’s the lid of a milk can. “If we raise taxes, it’ll torpedo the economy and cause a massive Recession.” No, as it turned out, both Bill Clinton and Obama raised taxes and the economy boomed. Both Bushes cut taxes and caused huge recessions (Bush-43’s second recession was global and nearly cataclysmic.)

Were there a lot of “news” sources pushing the unproven claim that Saddam had WMD’s? Yes. I don’t claim otherwise. But most of those were Conservative. Fox “news” was a leading offender of pushing the Bush narrative on WMD’s. And I think we’ve all learned to take Fox’s fealty to Trump (did somebody say, “Fox & Friends”?) with a grain of salt. Yet today, EVEN FOX isn’t uniformly touting the Trump line that there’s “no evidence of Russian meddling”. While there will always be ass-kissers like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson over there desperate to protect any Republican anywhere for anything, we also have anchor Chris Wallace challenging Putin to his face when he rejects Mueller’s indictment of 12 members of the G.R.U. (Russian Intelligence). Trump claims he saw “no reason why Russia would meddle in our election” (emphasis HIS), nearly stripping his gears throwing it into reverse when he was universally condemned for taking the side of Putin over his own intelligence agencies, declaring he actually meant “wouldn’t” (moments before inviting Putin to the White House as an honored guest. Seriously? Is that what you do if you truly believed Russia meddled?) Trump’s track record for honestly is a hell of a lot weaker than that of his accusers. If I must choose between trusting Trump and trusting “The 4th Estate”, I’ll side with the newspapers all day long.

“Forget about Iraq. What about The Gulf of Tonkin?” This reminds me of the old joke about the man who repeatedly ignored red lights while driving, on the grounds “my brother does this all the time!” But then stops at green lights because “My brother might be coming the other way!”

One, I doubt most of the people who cite Tonkin could even tell you what happened and why it’s significant. And two, if you must go back 50 years to find the next credible example of “our intelligence lying to start a war”, you’re stopping at green lights.
 

Postscript: If there are any repeat readers of M.R.S. still out there, you may have noticed I have since discontinued weekly updates after 15 years, now posting only on an “as-needed” basis. I simply ran out of ways to say “You’re being lied to. And here’s the history to prove it.” Other past pages (such as my extensive lists of “known Trump/Russia connections” and “absurd Trump superlatives” (both links on right) will continue to be updated, so check back often.

 


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July 23, 2018 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, mystery, myth busting, National Security, rewriting history

One Response

  1. Admin Mugsy - July 25, 2018

    Accusing The Media of lying only gets you so far now that this Orwellian White House has begun altering transcripts AND VIDEO of widely viewed/documented events to shape their version of events: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-white-house-cuts-putin-support-for-trump-out-of-transcript-1284716611545

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