pudge's Journal: Helen Thomas, Whopperette

"Journalist" Helen Thomas went after Bush yesterday, finally getting her chance to ask Bush a question. As noted before, her questions are pretty stupid. But this one is stupider than her previous proposals, starting out with: "Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true."

It's bad form to lie in your question.

Many of the reasons given for war were absolutely true: Iraq's noncompliance with UN resolutions (687, the cease fire, and following, up to and including 1441), Iraq's "brutal repression" of Iraq's civilians, its "hostility" toward the U.S., and its ties to terrorist groups (maybe not al Qaeda, but certainly others). Those are all obviously, absolutely, unquestionably, true.

And, incidentally, we still do not know if there were no WMD. Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed a former Iraqi general who said his planes flew WMD to Syria before the invasion. I've not believed that Iraq did have usable WMD since Powell's weak UN presentation, and I still don't believe it, but I would not be at all surprised if they did. We simply don't know.

Have you...

[FroMan]

Have you stopped beating your children Ms Thomas?

Basically the same thing. They are not hard ball questions, they are trying to frame the debate around their percieved notion of the world, then ask questions to attempt to get the one being asked to accept their world view. Not particularly clever...

Re:Have you...

[RailGunner]

Not only that, but the Government is still translating all kinds of documents obtained from Saddam's government.

But an admission from an Iraqi general that he shipped the WMD to Syria probably makes Basser Assad really nervous.

Possibly even moreso than the "You're Next" finger pointed at Iran right now....

Re:Have you...

[eglamkowski]

Earlier this year, former Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam said he wanted to see President Bashar al-Assad ousted through a popular uprising.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4586972.stm [bbc.co.uk]

I don't recall the US media making any waves over his story, but it seemed like a big deal to me at the time. Without enough media coverage it could have been a big deal, but instead it was swept under the rug, and with it went the short term hopes of/for the Syrian people.

Moo

[ncc74656]

Many of the reasons given for war were absolutely true: Iraq's noncompliance with UN resolutions (687, the cease fire, and following, up to and including 1441), Iraq's "brutal repression" of Iraq's civilians, its "hostility" toward the U.S., and its ties to terrorist groups (maybe not al Qaeda, but certainly others).

Recently translated documents have further strengthened the already-established link between Saddam and al-Qaeda. So much for the argument to the contrary to which the libs have been clingi

WMD's

[nocomment]

My favorite line to people who say there not WMD's in Iraq, usually goes something like "it took 50 years to prove the Germans were probably right about the Lusitania carrying munitions to England"*

* Which of course we still don't know for sure, but I tend to believe.