Lies, Lies, Lies: Tonkin Gulf, Anyone? [UPDATED] © 2003, John H. Farr
I really can't stand that the media allow Powell and the others to get away scot-free. Yesterday I was heartsick that the good general had swayed so many important politicians to the side of war. Today, after reading numerous critical analyses of what was actually said, I am incredulous that anyone believes him at all.
Powell referred to "decades of contact" between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but the terrorist group has only been in existence for the last five years,, and that's just the beginning. CNN and others are reporting that a supposedly current British government document about Saddam Hussein that Powell cited in his presentation to the U.N. is actually a plagiarized mish-mosh of 12-year-old material! I could go on but why bother? The government is lying. Even if they were not, no case was made for unprovoked war. John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush are more of a direct threat to the security of the United States than Saddam Hussein. Launching a war against a pitiful, rag-tag wreck of a country, regardless of how sadistic and wicked its ruler may be, will do nothing but condemn us in the eyes of the world.
The moral justification for war is absent, and we will pay a terrible price for this. What depresses me the most is what a "successful" war against Iraq would mean in terms of what would happen next. When we become the bad guys, only be one outcome is possible in the long run.
UPDATE: 12:05 p.m., MST -- Yeah, yeah. I'm right, but no humor in the above. You gotta read Mark Morford's piece from the SF Gate, linked to here at Smirking Chimp:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=10103
Oh, this is GOOD! This is GREAT, in fact. Here's a sample:
Let's get it even straighter: There is zero proof that Iraq is producing any sort of serious WMD of any significant threat or lethal potential, certainly nothing remotely dangerous to the United States, and even the weapons we do think they might be hiding and even those few the inspectors actually found are either empty canisters with a range of about 12 miles or rusty hulls of weapons we knew they had back in 1992. Swell.
Straighter still: There is zero direct threat to the United States from Iraq. None whatsoever. No long-range nukes, no Hefty bags of anthrax, no seething cells of swarthy bearded Islamic fundamentalists heading over to sodomize our daughters and steal our Ford Expeditions and use up all the credit on our Starbucks cards. Clear?
Go get 'em, Mark. [FarrFeed]
2:13:56 PM 
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