Do you think the public and soldiers deserved the truth?

Friday, April 11, 2008

George Bush, explaining to ABC's Martha Raddatz his upbeat stay the course style rhetoric in 2006 even when Iraq was in a downward spiral --

... the president insisted he did it to keep up troop morale.

That's as much...

to try and bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well -- you can't have the commander in chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing that either it's not worth it or you're losing. What does that do for morale? Bush said.

Bush felt his job was to ignore what everyone (including the soldiers) could see, and tell us something different.

So the public and the soldiers were lied to...for their own good.

Don't you think we deserved the truth?

lol, the truth? that he went in blind for the oil despite his own vice president had said a couple of years earlier that it was a bad idea, went in by lying to everyone about terrorists, and now it's costing the economy, and now people are dying and he's destroyed a country? I dont think he can face the truth himself, let alone tell it...

Well, for a guy that narrowly escaped going to JAIL like Martha Stewart for insider trading...and yes, he should have gone to jail.

Well, I have a hard time believing he has much of a conscience. I read enough Machiavelli in college to understand the thinking behind modern politics...he's played the role well, thumped the bible often enough, and all the Christians have fallen into lockstep believing he's marching to the beat of their drum.

Even recently, he waxed philosophical on the Afghanistan mission, which was unbelievable.

...less than a year left...less than a year left...less than a year left...

It helps to repeat it over and over, really.

Yes, the people always deserve the truth. And when they don't get it, their should be repercussions against the liars. Bush and Cheney are nothing but stinking lying murdering sobs, and wouldn't know the truth if it hit them upside the head. I mean Cheney can't help but look like a liar. He litterally talks out of the side of his mouth.

don't you hate it. your watching him talk about this and about that, and you know he's lying. everyone in the whole united states can see he's lying, why can't we do anything about it. we do deserve the truth. He gets on tv and says the grass is red, blue is white, and Cheany's daughter is straight, lol, no but you get my point. it just pisses me off when im watching politicians, and their is no doubt in my mind their lying, and I know every other American watching it knows he's lying, and we have to put up with it. to much like the court system, if ou can't prove him wrong he must be right, or even if you can prove him wrong he's still right

well, I agree with everyone so far. I wish that we could mark more than three answers as helpful!
cheney always reminded me of someone, I just couldn't put a name to it. then I saw the daily show and stewart's the penguin from batman. lol.

the amazing thing is that there are many who will defend them to the end.
I like toadaly's mantra...

lol, the penguin, thats awsome. its true though

Sometimes I don't think he would know the truth if it slapped him in the face. I love America and the freedoms we enjoy, but sometimes...

Well, let's just say the people of this country need to stand up for what is right, or it will never get better.

right on torikeene!

Ok, the facts are well documented--NYT, the Post etc...

1. Saddam had the ability to make chemical weapons and amassed a huge stockpile of them.
2. Saddam had the ability to make biological weapons and amassed a huge stockpile of them.
3.Saddam had nuclear aspirations and took steps to acheive that dream.
4.Saddam had the ability to build delivery systems for all of the above and possessed quite a few--remember a bunch of 'em were used during Kuwait..
5. Over the years, lots of these things (but not all) were known to be destroyed --thus further proving that they did, in fact, exist. (or were the folks that destroyed them lying about what they found and did?)

With me so far?

6. Saddam was known to have used them genocidally to kill thousands. No argument about that? right? Further proof they existed (the mass graves are simply normal Iraqi cemetery, I guess...)

7. The UN inspectors searched and could not find the remaining weapons.

8. Saddam was not forthcoming with proof of their destruction and played shell games with the inspectors.

9. Iraq is a big country with lots of places these things could be concealed.

10. We haven't found said WMD yet though we still are looking five years later.

11. Now, applying basic rules of logic, what can we conclude from this?

A. The weapons existed
B. There is NO proof they were ALL destroyed--some surely, but not all.
C. The only thing that can be said regarding our inability to find any of them is that we haven't found them YET. It cannot be said that, based on that premise, they do not exist. The absence of proof is never proof of anything.
D. Saddam was a dangerous man capable of using these weapons. Does anyone doubt that? (I have a bridge over in Brooklin I'll sell ya at a right price)
E. The possibility clearly remains that one of the most dangerous men in the world had access to dangerous weapons of unspeakable power and was capable of using them.
F. Given these facts, would a prudent person conclude that statement E was false?
G. Given that a lie is defined as stating as a fact something one knows to be untrue--
what part of the above did Bush lie about? In fact, wouldn't it be correct to say that he was truthful on all points?

It seems to me the case that bush lied lies in a faulty conclusion that with all this well documented knowlege in hand, Bush concluded that no weapons existed and decided to misrepresent that fact as a pretext to war. And that the proof is that we didn't find any weapons. To accept all of this, the case has to be made that at the very same time Mr. Bush was both incredibly smart and incredibly stupid at the same time...

umm...the question was not regarding bush's lies about WMDs but his recent admission that he lied regarding how well the war was going.
thanks for the info anyway.

dgreath - uhm who exactly proved he made these nuclear weapons? where is this well documented proof that no one seems to be able to find?

and saddam may have killed people, but Bush's war has destroyed an entire country and killed plenty of people too...

Ty--I didn't say he made them, I said he had aspiritions to do so and actively pursued acquiring the technology to do so. That we destroyed his labs seems like sufficient proof they existed. You'll find that stuff in the pages of the times and post from some years back.

Actually, we have taken great effort to avoid the loss of civilian lives in Iraq--its why our casualties are what they are. We could have simply bombed the crap out a neighborhood instead of going in house by house and trying to capture insurgents but our ROE (rules of engagement) prohibit that.

When you make statements like that, you infer that it is our troops doing the killing. Not so. It is principally the insurgency backed by AQ with a $30 million Dollar annual budget causing all this mayhem. Do you seriously think that if we left, these friendly fellows would simply walk away too? What in the world do you think they've been holding out for? These guys aren't defending Iraq from our aggression, they are waging an aggressive assault upon it in hopes of taking control of it (and her oil wealth). With Iraq as a base of operations and support, Al Quaeda will have unprecidented global reach and power.

If you seriously think that the Iraqi government is in any shape to fend off this agression, you are sadly deluded. They are still struggling to sort out their affairs and figure out how to stitch together a working society between three groups that haven't got along together for longer than anyone can remember.

And while some of the troops don't support the war, it is generally accepted that the majority of them do, are proud of what they are doing, and think what they are doing is important and meaningful but they are getting tired of it and hope for an end--who wouldn't?. And despite contining claims by the anti war bunch, we are doing a pretty darn good job over there. As is always the case, the antiwar folks are the ones who make it hard on our soldiers and drag the process out because they give hope to the other side that if they can hold on long enough, they can win (the lesson of VietNam). A strong national resolve to see it through to the end does more to shorten the war than 10,000 protest marches. That is what Senator McCain meant when he said we'd stay 100 years if that's what it takes

By the way, did you know that during the Clinton years, approximately 7,500 U.S. soldiers were killed while on active duty? Yes, Bush's casualty rate is a bit higher but not that much so. Relatively speaking, our war time losses, as compared to our peacetime losses have been remarkably low. Almost nothing compared to WWI, WWII, Korea, and VietNam. Financially, its been a remarkably low cost war as well and nearly all of the spending has gone directly into our domestic economy, creating millions of jobs here at home.

Ok, I've digressed a bit here. Sorry.

Amoeba -- Now as to whether the truth was deserved. In these sorts of things, truth can have tactical and strategic effects that significantly outweigh other factors. For example, to say we are winning the war may benefit what we are trying to do, help bring it to an earlier conclusion, and save money and lives. To concede we are losing the war, could drag it out, cost more money, and sacrifice needless lives. So tell me--which way would you have it? In my occupation, I know things that wouldn't be in your interest for you or others to know (many of us are similarly situated in our jobs), so should we divulge that to you/others or keep the secret? or lie to protect you and your info? It gets complicated.

Suffice it to say that if our Commander in Chief publicly said that things weren't going well for us the costs to our troops would be incalcuable. So the answer is no--at least until the war is over and everybody is home safely. Make sense?

it does a disservice to the office of president for bush to make positive statements about the war, that from all other reports, is not going well. his own generals were expressing doubt, the casualty reports were staggering, reports from the field were negative, etc.
stating that it is going great! and mission accomplished are not the proper responses for the soldiers and the country.
saying that it is a hard battle and that our soldiers are doing their best to ensure freedom for iraq is much more a tribute to our soldier's dignity. letting our soldiers know that their commander in chief actually understands what is going on is a better response. remember how the soldiers in viet nam felt upon receiving the news that everything there was going swimmingly...
bush lies as if he is a child that is worried his friends won't like him...