Drumbeats category archive
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Ya know, I don’t think I could stay in a job that required me to lie all the time.
Some of the time, maybe.
But not all the time.
Via Talking Points Memo.
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As I pointed out earlier, the recently released National Intelligence Estimate puts the lie to statements of the Current Federal Administration.
(Actually, I reckon putting the lie to a Bushie statement is pretty much–hmmmm–the default selection. Just look at the record.)
Josh Marshall deconstructs the spin on the NIE:
Dan Froomkin deconstructs the spin over the last five months:
Bush yesterday said he was only briefed about the new estimate last week.
But a close examination of his word choice over the past year suggests that he learned something around August that got him to stop making claims that were apparently no longer supported by American intelligence.
Instead of directly condemning Iranian leaders for pursuing nuclear weapons, he started more vaguely accusing them of seeking the knowledge necessary to make such a weapon.
Even as he did that, however, he and the vice president accelerated their rhetorical efforts to persuade the public that the nuclear threat posed by Iran was grave and urgent. Bush went so far in late August and October as to warn of the potential for a nuclear holocaust.
Indeed, a careful parsing of Bush’s words indicates that, while not saying anything that could later prove to be demonstrably false, Bush left his listeners with what he likely knew was a fundamentally false impression. And he did so in the pursuit of a more muscular and possibly even military approach to a Middle Eastern country.
It’s an oddly familiar pattern of deception.
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The assessment states “with moderate confidence” that “Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program” as of mid-2007, but suggests that Tehran continues to keep that option open.
This belies the continuing fulminations of the Current Federal Administration about the “danger” posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
And from whom does this come?
The Government of the United States of America.
“Belies” is, of course, the only appropriate word.
For almost everything out of the mouths of the Current Federal Administration be lies.
Addendum, 12/4/2007:
NPR analysizes the timelies timelines.
Once again, facts belie the statements of the Current Federal Administrator.
And Dick Polman considers what obstinant things facts can be (emphasis added):
Five years ago, he railed against the “grave and gathering danger” of Saddam Hussein’s WMDs, only to suffer irreperable domestic political damage when it turned out that he had committed American blood and treasure to the overthrow of a dictator who had no WMDs. And now he has been embarrassed again: Just six weeks after he raised the specter of the Iranians wielding a nuclear weapon, and invoked “World War III,” America’s 16 intelligence agencies have concluded in a new National Intelligence Estimate, with “high confidence,” that the Iranians actually halted their nuclear weapons program…
In 2003.
In the words of the Old Sailor, “Thar be (Bushie–natch) lies!”
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Joseph Galloway of McClatchy Newspapers:
(snip analysis–follow the link to read it)
When you add it all up, you have your answer: No one in their right mind would believe that attacking Iran now makes any sense at all.
But that doesn’t mean that Bush and Cheney won’t do it.
There were a lot of reasons why a pre-emptive strike into Iraq based on flimsy and bogus intelligence and far too few troops made no sense, yet they did it anyway, with trademark arrogance and ignorance.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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Susie hears the tom-toms.
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Kevin Drum (I know there is a wisecrack in there somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet):
Ratcheting down the “war of civilizations” talk isn’t some magic bullet that will suddenly make the Iranian regime feel secure enough to give up their nuclear program. But it’s one step in that direction, and smart foreign policy is all about putting together lots of little steps and pushing on lots of little levers to get what you want. Obviously this isn’t George Bush’s style — or Dick Cheney’s — but they won’t be in office forever. The question is: what are they going to do in the time they have left?
Via (in a quite roundabout way) Mithras.
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Mark Bowden in Sunday’s local rag:
Yet somehow we persist in believing the opposite. Just weeks ago, President Bush famously remarked, “I’ve told people that, if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
The WWIII mention got the most attention, but it was the last part of his comment that was the most startling to me.
(snip)
With U.S. forces occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, and with a nuclear Pakistan on Iran’s southeastern border, the Islamist Republic is surrounded by nuclear-armed adversaries. When I visited Tehran several years ago, even moderate pro-West Iranians who could read a map supported development of their own nuclear deterrent. They scoffed at the idea that they should be prevented from doing so by the United States or anyone else, just as Americans would scoff at the idea that Russia should dictate the terms of our own security.
“What hypocrisy!” one friendly Iranian journalist remarked to me. I suspect the bellicose policies of the Bush administration have done little to dampen this point of view, and have done much to strengthen the hand of the religious radicals in charge.
If ever Theodore Roosevelt’s advice – “Speak softly and carry a big stick” – made sense, it does so today in our dealings with Iran. The outcome we should most desire is for the mullahs to conclude that the cost of building a handful of nukes is too great, and that the advantage in having them is too small. The more Iran feels threatened, the less likely that becomes.
Mr. Bowden misses the point.
The Current Federal Administration is in no way connected with reality.
David Frum thinks it’s all talk and no action. Follow the link to listen to the interview:
But, mark this! anyone who has said, “Oh, well, the Bushies couldn’t possible mean that,” has been proven wrong, over and over again, as the Current Federal Administration has pursued its apparent goals of making the rich, richer; the poor, poorer: and betraying the ideals of the Founders.
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The New York Times learns from its mistakes on Iraq:
With a different White House, we might dismiss this as posturing — or bank on sanity to carry the day, or the warnings of exhausted generals or a defense secretary more rational than his predecessor. Not this crowd.
Four years after his pointless invasion of Iraq, President Bush still confuses bullying with grand strategy. He refuses to do the hard work of diplomacy — or even acknowledge the disastrous costs of his actions. The Republican presidential candidates have apparently decided that the real commander in chief test is to see who can out-trash talk the White House on Iran.
Endless war.
It’s a Republican thing.
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Dan Froomkin (emphasis added):
Stolberg continues: “Mr. Bush has repeatedly said the administration would not ‘tolerate’ a nuclear-armed Iran. But during a news conference on Wednesday, the president went further, saying of Iran: ‘If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.'”
Furthermore, Stolberg notes: “That distinction — having the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon, as opposed to actually having a weapon — is one the administration has not made in the past. David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who moderated a panel discussion before and after Mr. Cheney’s speech, said the vice president also seemed to draw a new red line when, instead of saying it is ‘not acceptable’ for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, he said the world ‘will not allow’ it.
More to the point, the challenge to keep Iran “from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon” is prima facie absurd. The knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon is in the public domain and has been so for over 50 years. It’s called “nuclear physics.”
But as an instrument for whipping up emotions among the ignorant and the hysterical, what a wonderful phrase!
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Radio Times yesterday:
Go to the website (if the link doesn’t take you to this week, search the archives for October 16, 2007) or listen here (Real Player).
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Deep inside the story about Swampwater, General Pollyanna Speaks:
He asserted that the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, was a member of the al-Quds Force of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Reuters news agency reported. U.S. commanders have accused al-Quds of funneling roadside bombs and other weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq.
When asked whether the Iranian government was responsible for killing American soldiers, Petraeus told a small group of reporters: “They are responsible for providing the weapons, the training, the funding and in some cases the direction for operations that have indeed killed U.S. soldiers,” according to Reuters.
Phillybits has more.
And the drums beat: More war, more war, more war. Make up a reason, make up a reason, make up a reason.
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Attacking the messenger. It’s sure sign that truth is not on their side. Dan Froomkin analyzes the evasions:
All Perino would say was that President Bush is seeking a diplomatic solution — precisely what the White House claimed as it set the Iraq war in motion in late 2002 and early 2003.
Hersh, who has a history of well-sourced, groundbreaking reporting (he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his uncovering of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam), writes that Bush is seriously considering limited strikes against Iran, ostensibly in defense of American troops in Iraq. The real attraction of such an approach, Hersh writes, is that Bush and Cheney believe it could be readily sold to the American people.
Plans for broad bombing targeting Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities are being replaced with plans for a more limited attack, Hersh writes, after Bush and his aides “concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign.”
Criswell predicts that, when all is said and done, Hersh will have another Pulitzer and the rest of us will have another war.
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They want more war. Seymour Hirsch:
The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical†strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.
We are led by warmongers.
God help us all.
Via Dan Froomkin.
Addendum, 10/2/2007:
Hear Mr. Hersh interviewed on today’s Fresh Air. From the website:
Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and covers the administration closely. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the recipient of five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards and a dozen other prizes. His most recent book, Chain of Command, is a detailed analysis of events at Abu Ghraib.
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They think war is good.
They think it is a first, not a last resort.
They are too old to fight. They leave it to the children of others.
They are, in short, disgusting excuses for humanity.
They want war.
For its own sake.
Words fail me.
Via Atrios.
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Listen to the beat at Delaware Watch.
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Bang the drum slowly, sing the song lowly:
They [the source’s institution] have “instructions†(yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.â€
(snip)
Postscript: Barnett Rubin just called me. His source spoke with a neocon think-tanker who corroborated the story of the propaganda campaign and had this to say about it: “I am a Republican. I am a conservative. But I’m not a raging lunatic. This is lunatic.â€
Via Will Bunch.