Contradictions on Syria

Apparently we have to bomb Syria because they used chemical weapons. I believe the mindset is that under international law, two wrongs can make a right.

Plus under Republican logic, Obama both exercises dictatorial powers and he is weak because he can’t decide to take military action without following the Constitution and going before Congress.

The most absurd reaction was Donald Rumsfeld saying Obama hasn’t made the case for striking Syria. He may be right, but Rumsfeld is in no position to question Obama about taking limited action regarding real WMD after he backed a major war over non-existent WMD.

Bob Woodward Accuses Donald Rumsfeld of Distorting History on Iraq

Bob Woodward has often been frustrating in recent years as he repeats the establishment line far too often for someone who once helped force a corrupt president from office. If he had investigated the Bush administration as vigorously as he investigated Richard Nixon, perhaps recent history might be different. The lies of Donald Rumsfeld in his new book are too much even for Woodward, who has a column at Foreign Policy exposing many of them. Before getting to the specifics, Woodward wrote:

Rumsfeld’s memoir is one big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others — including President Bush — distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussing matters that cannot be airbrushed away. It is a travesty, and I think the rewrite job won’t wash.

The Iraq War is essential to the understanding of the Bush presidency and the Rumsfeld era at the Pentagon. In the book, Rumsfeld tries to push so much off on Bush. That is fair because Bush made the ultimate decisions. But the record shows that it was Rumsfeld stoking the Iraq fires — facts he has completely left out of his memoir.

What a shock–Rumsfeld lied. It looks like both Bush and Rumsfeld (along with Cheney) are responsible for what is one of the most vile acts imaginable by a government–going to war unnecessarily based upon lies. I still don’t understand why the Tea Party people weren’t out on the street protesting this one. (Oh yeah, its because they are a far right wing movement which has absolutely nothing to do with the ideals of the American Revolution.)

I am glad to see Woodward exposing several of Rumsfeld’s lies. It is a shame that his lies, along with those of Bush and Cheney, cannot be investigated more thoroughly by a war crimes tribunal.

Quote of the Day

“Dick Cheney presented Donald Rumsfeld with a Defender of the Constitution Award. And, yes, the irony was lost on both of them.” –Seth Meyers

True Words From CPAC

While CPAC has generally been a forum for conservative talking points, beginning with Michele Bachmann once again blaming the Republican-created deficit on Obama, there at least were some honest words spoken at there. Supporters of Ron Paul called Dick Cheney a war criminal when he arrived to present a “Defender Of The Constitution” award to Donald Rumsfeld. They also pointed out the absurdity of Rumsfeld winning a “Defender Of The Constitution” award.

Bush, Cheney, & Rumsfeld “Knew Guantánamo Prisoners Were Innocent”

The Times of London reports on allegations of additional  war crimes committed by George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. Lawrence Wilkerson alleges that the three knew that hundreds of prisoners at Gitmo were innocent but covered this up because it would impeded their push to go to war:

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration.

Sarah Palin Says United States Should Rededicate Itself To Seeking God’s Will

Palin Graham

Sarah Palin said the United States should rededicate itself to seeking God’s will in a video released Friday by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Palin is a young-earth creationist who believes she will see Jesus in her lifetime. As mayor of Wasilla she tried to stack the local school board with creationists and tried to pressure the local library to remove books which social conservatives found offensive.

This is hardly the first time that Palin has expressed such theocratic sentiments confusing “God’s will” with governing. In June 2008 she described the Iraq war as a “task that is from God” and even described the Alaska gas pipeline as “God’s will.”

As repulsive as these beliefs are, they are apparently mainstream in the GOP. For example, George Bush has expressed the belief that God chose him to be President and advised him to go to war in Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld used biblical imagery to sell Bush on the Iraq war. Jacques Chirac has also been quoted as saying that Bush had justified the Iraq war based upon biblical prophesy.

Report Released on Bush’s Failure To Capture Bin Laden At Tora Bora

I’ve mentioned the failure of the Bush administration to capture bin Laden when they had an excellent chance  at Tora Bora multiple times in the past.  The New York Daily News reports on a Senate report on this failure. John Kerry, who criticized Bush for his mistakes at Tora Bora when running against him in 2004, requested this report:

Osama Bin Laden was within military reach when the Bush administration allowed him to disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan rather than pursue him with a massive military force, a new Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to get the terrorist leader when he was at his most vulnerable in December 2001 – three months after the 9/11 attacks – led to today’s reinvigorated insurgency in Afghanistan.

Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, requested the report, which came as President Obama prepares to send as many as 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Kerry has long argued the Bush administration botched an opportunity to capture the Al Qaeda leader and his top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of Tora Bora.

The report calls then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, the top military commander at the time, to the carpet and asserts the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault on Bin Laden with several thousand troops.

Instead, fewer than 100 commandoes, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down the ragged band of terrorists.

That “Kerry was Right” file sure is getting big.

Chirac Recounts Bush’s Use of Biblical Prophesy To Justify Iraq War

In May I noted that, following previous reports that George Bush believed that God advised him to go to war and reports that Donald Rumsfeld used Biblical imagery to influence Bush, a new book quoted Jacques Chirac confirming previous reports that Bush used Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq. The Council for Secular Humanism has posted more on this:

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush’s strange behavior in Lausanne University’s review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: “When President George W. Bush Saw the Prophesies of the Bible Coming to Pass.” France’s La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline “A Small Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog.” But other news media missed the amazing report.

Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon…

The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.”

Considering that the stated reasons for going to war, such as WMD or a connection between Saddam and 9/11, failed to hold up, this perhaps explains why Bush did conduct such acts in office which were contrary to our national interests.

Chirac Verifies Reports That Bush Went To War Based Upon Biblical Prophesy

There have been previous reports that George Bush believed that God advised him to go to war in Iraq. In the past week there have been reports that Donald Rumsfeld used Biblical imagery to influence Bush. Counterpunch reports that a new book quotes Jacques Chirac confirming previous reports that Bush used Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq:

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France’s President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:

“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle … and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:

“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”.

The article goes on to say that this has been confirmed by Chirac:

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush’s invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs”.

In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on “a mission from God” in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord.

There can be little doubt now that President Bush’s reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam’s Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.

Donald Rumsfeld’s Crusade Against Islam

Who would have guessed that Robert Draper (hardly a liberal writer) would have this weekend’s must read article for liberals in GQ (hardly the most significant magazine for current affairs). Draper has some fascinating material on Donald Rumsfeld, especially with regards to the use of Crusade-like religious messages in reports on the war:

Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable. Several others in the Pentagon disagreed. At least one Muslim analyst in the building had been greatly offended; others privately worried that if these covers were leaked during a war conducted in an Islamic nation, the fallout—as one Pentagon staffer would later say—“would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

But the Pentagon’s top officials were apparently unconcerned about the effect such a disclosure might have on the conduct of the war or on Bush’s public standing. When colleagues complained to Shaffer that including a religious message with an intelligence briefing seemed inappropriate, Shaffer politely informed them that the practice would continue, because “my seniors”—JCS chairman Richard Myers, Rumsfeld, and the commander in chief himself—appreciated the cover pages.

As even at least one analyst at the Pentagon realized, the use of such language would have even worsened the belief in the Muslim world that the Bush administration was conducting a religious crusade against Islam. Rumsfeld felt it was more important to appeal to the mind set of George Bush:

The Scripture-adorned cover sheets illustrate one specific complaint I heard again and again: that Rumsfeld’s tactics—such as playing a religious angle with the president—often ran counter to sound decision-making and could, occasionally, compromise the administration’s best interests. In the case of the sheets, publicly flaunting his own religious views was not at all the SecDef’s style—“Rumsfeld was old-fashioned that way,” Shaffer acknowledged when I contacted him about the briefings—but it was decidedly Bush’s style, and Rumsfeld likely saw the Scriptures as a way of making a personal connection with a president who frequently quoted the Bible. No matter that, if leaked, the images would reinforce impressions that the administration was embarking on a religious war and could escalate tensions with the Muslim world. The sheets were not Rumsfeld’s direct invention—and he could thus distance himself from them, should that prove necessary.

So Rumsfeld thought he could impress his simple-minded boss by quoting the Bible.

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