by J.B. Williams
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
americans are nothing if not opinionated. When it comes to politics and war, everyone has an opinion, although few are well-researched. These days, the facts rarely get in the way of a good marketable story. In fact, best I can tell, the facts rarely even enter the discussion... So just for fun, let's see if the facts can change anyones opinion, shall we?
FaCTS - Harry Reid: "The problem is not nuclear testing; it is nuclear weapons. ... The number of Third World countries with nuclear capabilities seems to grow daily. Saddam Hussein's near success with developing a nuclear weapon should be an eye-opener for us all." Dick Durbin: "One of the most compelling threats we in this country face today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Threat assessments regularly warn us of the possibility that...Iraq...may acquire or develop nuclear weapons." John Kerry: "If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me." John Edwards: "Serving on the Intelligence Committee and seeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, it's just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons." Nancy Pelosi: "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons-inspection process." Ted Kennedy: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
George W. Bush: ""The history, the logic and the facts lead to one conclusion: The Saddam Hussein regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble, and this is a risk we must not take."
CONCLUSION - Bush lied?
FaCTS - In 1991, the Hussein regime signed a cease fire agreement with coalition forces that required Iraq to live up to certain conditions of that cease fire. Between 1991 and 1998, the Hussein regime repeatedly broke those conditions and violated no less than 16 subsequent UN resolutions demanding their compliance. In 1998, the Clinton administration authored a bill that overwhelmingly passed both houses of congress, making regime change in Iraq the official US policy on Iraq. In 2002, after 9/11/01, Bush sought congressional approval to use force to affect that official US policy and congress voted 370 --156 in favor of using force to affect regime change in Iraq.
CONCLUSION --This is Bush's war?
FaCTS --Increasingly weary of the political rhetoric surrounding Iraq, (known by both military experts and our enemy as the central front in the war on international terrorism, but referred to by Democrats as "a diversion from the war on terror"), House Republicans forced Democrats to go "on record" with their official position concerning troop withdrawal from Iraq in 2005. Despite all their heated rhetoric and repeated demands to pull out of Iraq, when the time came to stand firmly behind their campaign sound bites, the House voted 403-3 NOT to pull out. (That's 3 in favor of troop withdrawal --count them.)
CONCLUSION --We must change course and get out of Iraq immediately?
FaCTS --Radical Islamic Terrorism raised its ugly head for the first time on November 4, 1979 under the Carter administration when a group of radical Islamic students in Tehran, Iran took 66 hostages at the US Embassy. They were released 444 days later, on the day of Reagan's inauguration. Between 1982 and 1988, a myriad of Islamic terror organizations including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, in Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Spain, Italy, austria, Greece, Germany and Scotland, launched no less than thirteen successful terror attacks killing hundreds and injuring hundreds more around the globe. Few had heard of Bin Laden or al Qaeda before their first attempt to level the World Trade Towers in New York City on February 26, 1993. In april of 1995, home-grown terrorists with suspected ties to Middle Eastern terrorists level a federal building in Oklahoma City. On November 13, 1995, militant Islamofascists attacked the US Military base in Riyadh, Saudi arabia. In June of 1996, Hezbollah blew up the Khobar Towers Military complex in Dhahran, Saudi arabia. al Qaeda was a suspected participant. In 1998, Bin Laden's network al Qaeda blew up US Embassy's in Kenya and Tanzania. In October 2000, Bin Laden's network then attack US Navy destroyer USS Cole in the port of Yemen. George W. Bush did not become President until January 20, 2001...
al Qaeda's first attack on US soil was in 1993 at the World Trade Center. al Qaeda's second attack on US soil was in 1998 at US Embassy's in Kenya and Tanzania. al Qaeda's third attack on US soil was the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. all of these attacks went completely unanswered by the Clinton administration. There is no other way to paint it.
Eight months into the first Bush administration, al Qaeda launched their biggest attack on US soil, September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. almost 3000 innocent americans, men, women and children, died that day. This plot was not hatched in afghanistan, but in Germany. It was not planned during the Bush administration, but rather during the Clinton administration, beginning in 1996.
CONCLUSION --Bush created terrorists and america is less safe?
FaCTS --In the words of Mansoor Ijaz, senior member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Clinton administration insider, "President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.
I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.
From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.
among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center.
The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.
as an american Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster." Ijaz was a Clinton administration insider and directly involved in international affairs. In his closing statement, "Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in american history."
CONCLUSION --Bush let Bin Laden get away?
For the record, I can keep going for another few pages, but I doubt it will make much difference.
Should reality silence the rhetoric? aBSOLUTELY!!!
Now let me tell you why it won't...
If truth be told - then Democrats can't get elected and that doesn't set well with DNC leadership and the anti-american socialist billionaires currently in control of that party. So the rhetoric must continue.
The Democratic Party is on the brink of extinction. Their MSM ratings are in the toilet, as are DNC contributions (outside of the funding now coming through bogus 527 organizations that McCain-Feingold attempted to outlaw), and any american in love with america can no longer stomach the bellyaching and sniveling from these limousine liberal morons.
However, if you are one of the many new americans, those with nothing left to lose, nothing to live for and no one to secure america's future for, then any story will do as long as it promises you more favor from the federal trough. In this case, the pack of lies that make up today's Democratic Party talking points might just be your cup of tea...
If November's mid-term elections are to be a referendum on the war on terror, national security or more specifically, the "wrong war" in Iraq, then let it be. But let it be based on reality, not rhetoric!
Commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by watching aBC's miniseries The Path to 911, airing this Sunday the 10th and Monday the 11th, 8/7C. a dramatization not so loosely based on the official findings of the 9/11 Commission Report, signed by all members of the Commission.
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