The news was somewhat buried — reading page 8 or 9 of USA Today — Rumsfeld sees no link between Saddam Hussein, 9/11 and Bush: No proof of Saddam role in 9/11. Well, it’s really big of them to come clean on this, two years after the fact, and long since it was shown that 70% of Americans thought that Hussein was responsible for the attacks. Exactly why would the people have thought that? Because the Pentagon dropped Afghanistan like a hot potato when the going got non-productive, and pursued Saddam instead? Because the insinuation was made over and over again that there absolutely was a connection?
I’m frustrated that this is page 8 news because the war could not have been fought without support of the American people. Therefore it didn’t behoove the pimps in power to come clean on the non-connection, though Rummy says he knew all along that there was no connection. So remind me again what the supposed goal of the war was? (“Removing a terrible dictator from power” is the wrong answer, sorry).
p.s.: U.S. weapons hunters find no evidence Iraq had smallpox and Senator Edward Kennedy says the case for war against Iraq “was a fraud.”
None of this related to the recent disocvery of ancient Venezuelan Buffalo-sized rodents, of course.
http://www.ucomics.com/barbarabrandon/2003/09/19/
Bob Goodsell has a great take on *why* they chose this particular moment to start backpedaling — one, because Hurricane Isabel means the news will get buried; two, because there’s a 9/11 survivors’ lawsuit against Iraq that would cut into Halliburton profits.
Read up:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bgoodsel/post911/2003_09_14_arch.htm#106388884828111150
and:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bgoodsel/post911/2003_09_14_arch.htm#106380931198101747
“Removing a terrible dictator from power” is the wrong answer, sorry.”
Strike one for free speech, I guess. Now who’s close-minded?
Beneath you, Scot, sorry. Telling people what the answer IS and ISN’T are the tactics of those you profess to hate. Become what you behold, but it only weakens your position.
mnep, it has nothing to do with free speech. My question was:
“remind me again what the supposed goal of the war was? ”
The answer “Removing a terrible dictator from power” would be an incorrect answer because it was not a supposed goal of the war. It’s not my opinion – it’s history.
OK, you’re right, I was pre-empting / predicting a possible response, but not because I am repressing disagreement, only to say that that predictable response would be incorrect.
It was probably buried because it isn’t news at all:
The New York Times and the LA Times both, to my recollection, reported that the Bush administration was unable to come up with any solid info that linked Iraq to September 11th. This is way back in 2001- though I haven’t got any links to show you. But it wasn’t just “a senior administration official stated”- it was actual named quotes.
(I’m not the biggest fan of USA Today- they tend to be late with items and feel like a Reader’s Digest version of the news, so I am biased.)
Bob Woodward also covers Rumsfeld pushing the possible Iraq connection in “Bush At War”.
Correction: back in 2002, methinks. I’ve been checking notes.
Supressing speech would be if Scot had said “You’re not allowed to post to my blog if you think X.” He didn’t say that. He just said “You’re wrong if you think X.”
And the tactics of the rightists go far, far beyond “telling people what the answer IS and ISN’T”. At some level, all political discourse has to be founded on an implicit claim to the right answer — otherwise, you have no basis for your policy to be adopted in favor of someone else’s. The difference between left and right, here, is that the left is more tolerant of those who hold wrong views.