Bush's own man trashes his SOTU claims on WMDs

[Ned]

Originally posted by skywalker


You forgot Kucinich

Why is that man still in the race.

Besides, he gives me the creeps. I can hardly imagine anyone voting for him for anything. The state that elected him to office must have a real screw loose.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Johnson lied about the second torpedo attack, which is what he used to justify retaliation. Everyone who was there has avvered there was no second attack, that they were just shooting at non-existant targets. Johnson didn't care that the incident was fictional, he still used it as justification for escalation.

"For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." - LBJ. Yeah, that's great justification or a war there.

And Admiral Stockdale, who was a witness to the events, wrote in his 1984 book that there was nothing there, except American firepower.

As to the first Tonkin incident, it was certainly provoked:

"There have been some covert operations in that (Tonkin Gulf) area that we have been carrying on - blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth. So I imagine (the North Vietnamese) wanted to put a stop to it." - LBJ

And I'll leave with this all-too familiar thought:

"In Retrospect, many of the people who were associated with the war ..... were looking for any excuse to initiate bombing. ....." - former Undersecretary of State George Ball

A few days before I was discharge from the Navy, I was going into Long Beach and sitting next to me was a 2nd class GunnerMate from the Turner Joy and I asked him what happen out there. He told me that there was two NVA boats coming out to where they were and they had permission from Washington to fired at them. As soon as the boats were in range the the Turner Joy open fired and hit one the NVA boat and sunk it. The Maddox sunk the other boat. I will agree that the NVA boats did not fired at our Destroyers because they were never close enought to fired before they were sunk.
And btw an Admiral would not be on a Destroyers that is on patrol in 1964. They stayed on Cruiser or Carriers.
And this Gunnermate was the gunner on number 1 turret, and his turret got the direct hit on their NVA boat.
He was very proud of that fact.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Ned


As I said, if this is true, then everyone who formerly said that Saddam had WMD lied. That includes all the top Democrats from the Clinton administration and everyone who argued in favor of the Iraq War authorization in Congress, which includes Hillary Clinton and Senator Kerry.

This is not an issue that the Democrats can win on if their nominee is Kerry. This is a Dean issue because he is the ONLY one running that has always been against the war.

Hey Ned even Saddam lied about his weapons. Remember he played a game with the US for 12 years by not allowing the Inspector go where ever they wanted and he kept up the game hinting that he had some somewhere, but we would never find them. Well Geroge call his bluff.

The only thing about this war I don't like is those young kids getting kill for that a$$hole Saddam. 40 years ago I was one of those kids, but I was lucky, I was in San Diego during the Cuban missile thing and was discharge on my discharge date of 26 March 65, but some of my buddy were extended to go to Nam and put the Marines ashore at Cam Ron Bay some 3 month after I was out. And I was in Boat Group Div. to. However none of by buddy were hit. But a mile away from were my buddy hit the beach there was a big fire fight with other boat hitting the beach. A guy from my old Division was at Mare Island a few years later and told me what had happen.

[Ned]

The problem with Vietnam was that we had no strategy for victory. Johnson was unwilling to do what was necessary to win. He was the opposite of Truman at the close of the Second World War. Johnson was willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of American lives in the hope of a negotiated peace deal. Truman was willing to hammer the enemy into a bloody pulp until they unconditionally surrendered.

While the use of nuclear weapons appalls me, I wonder what it what would happen had Johnson demanded that the North Vietnamese surrender immediately and unconditionally in August of 1964 or face total annihilation? I think they might have surrendered, but we shall never know. Goldwater was saying during the campaign that he would consider using nuclear weapons to win the war. Johnson was overly critical of Goldwater's position, implying that if we were used nuclear weapons that the Soviets would attack us with nukes of their own. If one thinks about that for more than a minute, the likelihood that the Soviet Union would place their country at risk for North Vietnam is very low.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
That does not mean that only Bush lied. That means that he did not lie.

Strange logical deduction here.

Originally posted by Ned
It does indicate a very severe intelligence problem.

As indicated before, W knew that information was unreliable, yet he casted it as if it was ironclad, so he could push his own agenda with said information. He surely did lie somewhere.

Furthermore, just not that long ago, W rehashed the same old assertions -- about terrorism, about other countries having BCN weapons, etc. -- in the SotU address 2004.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If one thinks about that for more than a minute, the likelihood that the Soviet Union would place their country at risk for North Vietnam is very low.

By that reasoning the likelihood that the US would place their country at risk for West Germany is very low. If the US nuked Vietnam and the Soviets did nothing then they'd be seen as weak. They couldn't have that in a global Cold War.

[Ned]

Imran, did Kruschev have a formal alliance with NV?

As to West Germany, Kennedy made it clear that an attack on West Germany would invoke a nuclear response by the US on the USSR. Kruschev had no such alliance with Ho and had not made anything clear.

Besides, the Cuban missile crisis showed that the Soviets would back down. They had no desire to see their country destroyed for Castro's sake. Later, in 67, they failed to support Egypt when it was being overrun by Israel. The evidence suggests that the USSR would go some distance to support their fellow communist regimes but would not risk nuclear war with the US.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

As indicated before, W knew that information was unreliable, yet he casted it as if it was ironclad, so he could push his own agenda with said information. He surely did lie somewhere.

Furthermore, just not that long ago, W rehashed the same old assertions -- about terrorism, about other countries having BCN weapons, etc. -- in the SotU address 2004.

So, we have a litterally accurate statement by the President concerning Niger which is a lie by Democrat standards because the CIA disagreed with the Brits (concerning the reliability of the intelligence) and Bush was not entitled to rely on the Brits over the CIA?

Now, how again is that a lie?

[rev]

Playing acute semantics with intelligence in order to justify invasion, particularly when it means using an ally's beliefs against the better judgement of your own intelligence services, may not quite be 'lying', per se, but it's not exactly being honest and straightfoward, which is what the American people deserve when being asked to send their children to war.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Ned
The problem with Vietnam was that we had no strategy for victory. Johnson was unwilling to do what was necessary to win.

You mean like start World War III?

As soon as I saw U.S. troops doing cordon and search operations and standing at intersections manning meaningless checkpoints I knew the US military had learned absolutely nothing from Vietnam.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
Now, how again is that a lie?

He lied about Iraqis having BCN weapons without any evidence backing him up. He did not say it was a speculation -- he said it as if it were a fact.

Again, he did not even change his stance even after repeated attempts in locating these alleged weapons had failed.

[uh Clem]

While the use of nuclear weapons appalls me, I wonder what it what would happen had Johnson demanded that the North Vietnamese surrender immediately and unconditionally in August of 1964 or face total annihilation? I think they might have surrendered, but we shall never know.

Wrong, we know exactly what would have happened. The leadership of the Democratic Party would have had Lyndon Johnson quietly put away on some excuse (he'd had a history of severe heart problems) and replaced with either Hubert Humphrey or Robert Kennedy.

Would have been interesting to see US diplomats try to sell NATO on the "total annihilation" of a third-world country that represented absolutely no threat to the United States...yeah, that would have been real popular...

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Agathon
But this is the big one.

Bush is wrong, Bush is a liar!!!!

This is politics, its not like that kind of stuff is out of the ordinary.

Case in point, our last President: "I did not have sex with that woman."

Nixon: "I am not a crook!"

LBJ, "We landed on the moon."

I don't understand why anyone takes anything from a politician at face value.

[Spiffor]

/me pops in the thread just to continue gloating

[Agathon]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb

This is politics, its not like that kind of stuff is out of the ordinary.

And it should be punished.

Case in point, our last President: "I did not have sex with that woman."

That resulted in a fat girl with a mouth full of spunk. Bush's lies started a war.

Nixon: "I am not a crook!"

He was undermining democracy. How can you compare that with Clinton getting a blow-job.