Those politicos and anti-war types who’ve staked their reputations on the “Bush Lied” meme have got to be getting nervous as more and more of the Saddam archives get translated and made public.
Here, for instance, via Powerline (h/t Dave Price), is the translated text of a Top Secret memo, which begins with this introduction by the translator, jveritas:
Document ISGP-2003-0001498 contains a 9 page TOP SECRET memo (pages 87-96 in the pdf document) dated March 16 2003 that talks about transferring “SPECIAL AMMUNITION†from one ammunition depot in Najaf to other ammunition depots near Baghdad. As we know by now the term SPECIAL AMMUNITION was used by Saddam Regime to designate CHEMICAL WEAPONS as another translated document has already shown. For example in document CMPC 2004-002219 where Saddam regime decided to use “CHEMICAL WEAPONS against the Kurds†they used the term “SPECIAL AMMUNITION†for chemical weapon [see here]. What is also interesting is that these “SPECIAL AMMUNITION†were listed as 122 mm, 130 mm, and 155 mm caliber shells which are not by itself SPECIAL unless it contain CHEMICAL WEAPONS. In fact the Iraqi have always used 122 mm, 130 mm, and 155 mm caliber shell as a main delivery tool for Chemical Weapons Agents by filling these type of shells with Nerve Gas, Sarin, Racin, Mustard gas and other Chemical Agents.
My emphases.
The translation:
In the Name of God the Merciful The Compassionate Top Secret Ministry Of Defense Chairmanship of the Army Staff Al Mira Department No. 4/17/ammunition/249
Date 16 March 2003To: The Command of the Western Region
Subject: Transfer of Ammunitions
The secret and immediate letter of the Chairmanship of the Army Staff 4/17/308 on 10 March 2003
1. The approval of the Army Chief of Staff was obtained to transfer THE SPECIAL AMMUNITIONS in the ammunition depots group of Najaf and according to the following priorities:
A. The first priority
First. Ammunition (122 mm)
Second. Ammunition (130 mm)
Third. Ammunition (155 mm)To the depots and storage of the Second Corps and the two ammunition depot groups Dijla/2/3
B. Second priority.
First. Ammunition (23 mm)
Second. Ammunition (14.5 mm)To the ammunition depots of the air defense and distributed to the ammunition depot groups in (Al Mussayeb- Al Sobra- Saad).
2. To execute the order of the Chief Army Staff indicated in section (1) above, we relate the following:
A. Duty
Transfer of the ammunitions shown in sections (A) and (B) from the ammunitions depots of Najaf to the ammunition depots in (Dijla 2/3, and Al Mansor, and Saad, and Al Mussayeb, and Sobra and Blad Roz and Amar Weys from March 16 till April 14 2003.
Signature…
General Rasheed Abdallah Sultan
Assistant to the Army Chief of Staff- Al Mira
March 2003
The translator then notes:
The remaining pages of this 9 pages top secret memo talk about getting the special vehicles to transfer the SPECIAL AMMUNITION and the people assigned to supervise and execute the transfer and they were top Iraqi Army and Military Intelligence officers.
The source document can be accessed here.
Asks Hugh Hewitt:
Now comes another document with more potentially significant language, and so the question grows: What do these documents mean?
The suspicion is growing that the American intelligence community never systematically checked these docs. If they did, they should produce the record of that evaluation and the conclusions reached on documents which, on their face, seem to be proof of Saddam’s pre-war WMD stockpiles.The White House as well must recognize that these documents are not yesterday’s news and must not be afraid to reopen the debate about the WMDs.
Fair enough. But as John Hinderaker reminds us, we want to
proceed with caution. This document is dated just a few days before the war began, and, based on the prefix assigned to it, I think it came from the Iraq Survey Group. It seems almost inconceivable that the ISG could have overlooked a document with such apparent relevance to its mission.
[…] We’d like to get confirmation of jveritas’s translation, as well as any comments on the significance of other portions of the document. We’d also be interested to get the perspective of anyone who served with the ISG. If this document is old news, and there is some innocent explanation, we’re curious to know what it is.
And here is Steven Hayes [via Powerline], whose work on getting these documents released has been relentless:
[…] I find generally persuasive the narrative laid out by LTC Kevin Woods, et. al. in the Iraqi Perspectives Project. Their thesis is, basically, that Saddam Hussein didn’t have what we thought he had because he didn’t have what HE thought he had. In mid-December 2002, according to their narrative, SH tells top regime officials that he doesn’t have large quantities of WMD.
I don’t know whether the Army Chief of Staff was among the senior regime officials who were told that the WMD was gone. If he wasn’t, it could be that these are genuine orders, contained in an authentic document, for materials that simply weren’t available to them. The document certainly seems to suggest that the author believed that they had them on March 16, 2003.
That said, it’s certainly possible that he (or his subordinates) retained some small capability in the chemical area. I think that’s the reason that the ISG quite deliberately left open the possibility that some materials could have been transferred to Syria or elsewhere.
I’m not sure where the recent revelations about Naji Sabri fit into this picture. Sabri, the former Iraqi foreign minister, apparently told the CIA (through the French) in January 2003 that Iraq had retained some chemical capability but that the weapons were no longer under military control.
Food for thought, all of it—regardless of whether or not the weapons were real or simply believed to be real.
Because either way, it is becoming unmistakable that the release of these documents is likely to challenge the anti-war narrative (shared by many in the Senate who voted for the authorization of force, only to walk back their votes, claiming they’d been duped, as the media presentation of Iraq helped dissipate public support); and that alone, I think, is an important event—because it will show that some of our leaders and our ostensibly disinterested media have let political opportunism and a clearly anti-interventionalist ideological agenda (well, while Republicans are in control of the military, at least) guide them in their supposed principled assessment of the GWOT.
The MSM has a political agenda? How about that?
But…but…but..BUSH LIED!
CHALABIBURTON!!!!!!!
I, too, have some questions about these documents.
You should remember two things, Jeff.
1. The web gets no RAW data.
2. The web gets no CLASSIFIED data.
Every single document has had at least a cursory reading. The guvvies say that there are no known chalabi-style frauds included in the data pile, but still, one must wonder why more press wasn’t given to documents like the one featured in your article.
My personal hypothesis is that the guvvies couldn’t completely verify source on a lot of this.
I am not saying the “army of translators” is a bad thing–possibly nuggets of data mined from questionable docs can aggregate to some sort of quantitative truth, baring the qualitative kind.
But the smoking gun ain’t in there. Or they would have owned it.
ha ha, turing word: comes
Comes a horseman….death rides a pale horse.
I didn’t know you could do all caps in arabic. But now it looks like we know where the WMD’s are, and can go find htem. Hooray!
In the Name of God the Merciful
I thought this Saddam dude’s country was, like, all secular and stuff, man??
I believe I’ve mentioned this before. If you worked for someone who fed people into woodchippers for sport, you most likely be damned sure you had something good to show him if he asked for progress reports on his pet biochemonuke weapons project.
Unfortunately, things that fooled Saddam would have the side effect of fooling any observers as well.
As these documents get translated and released, we’ll see a lot more of this kind of thing—and it doesn’t matter one tiny bit.
Face facts: we did not discover the banned weapons when we first went into Iraq, and that’s all that our liberal friends know or care about. It has reached the point (and, in fact, that point was reached by the Autumn of 2003) that the only way in which any claims concerning a real WMD program in Iraq will be believed is if we can physically lay our hands on a significant stockpile of them, and do so in a way in which the libs cannot make any reasonable claim that we planted them.
Nothing else will do. A thousand tons of documents could be unearthed, saying that they had been transferred to Syria, and it wouldn’t matter.
The things that Saddam would have used to fool Iran and his other neighbors would also fool observers.
I’m skeptical of this one. I’m not an arms expert, but I don’t see how the 23mm and 14.5mm ammunition mentioned in the translation fit into the picture. 23mm and 14.5 mm are (as I understand) common calibers for Soviet and Soviet-knockoff anti-aircraft artillery, and they were ordered sent to the ammuntion depots for the air defense forces. Why include them under the heading of “Special Ammunitions”? I doubt you could load chemical agents in a shell that small, much less use them effectively.
Were it just the larger artillery rounds mentioned under “Special Ammunitions”, I might find this persuasive. As it is, I’d need some explination before I took this as evidence.
I suspect Bush did not want to lead with this material because of the complete denial of everything else he has released. Kinda like the Army’s attitude, from Vietnam experience, of never releasing enemy body counts.
Nishizono Shinji —
Not being sure is precisely the point. It gives lie to the big Bush “lie”. He had to rely on the consensus opinion of our intel services. Which he did. And we know, already, from one investigation, that he didn’t apply pressure on them to reach a proconceived conclusion.
I disagree with you, Dana. I think the steady stream of documents will have an effect on how people who have been taught to believe we went to war on false pretenses come to see how difficult it is to make the types of decisions Bush had to make—particularly in the wake of 911.
And I think that bodes well for those who stand behind his decision.
You just now buying into this scenario?
Little late to the party. I understand they’re getting ready to amend the charges against Saddam to include this.
Key witnesses win an all expense paid trip to Baghdad.
Civilis —
That’s addressed in the Powerline link. Somebody noted that ammo treated with such chemicals to make them more deadly has been used before.
They also point out that special transport for such weapons is unusual.
Anyway, a healthy skepticism is fine. Just so long as we are keeping an open mind.
Sorry about that. I just know enough to trust that when you say something comes from a source that if I go there I’ll find exactly what you said I’d find. If I followed every potentially interesting link at this site, I’d never get off the internet.
It would be nice to know what the US knew about Najaf and the other bases before the war.
The question the media and the left in this country simply don’t want to ask is this: WHERE DID THE WMD GO? We know he had them, where are they? There’s no evidence of him having destroyed them, where are they? The record is that he still had some, where are they?
See, this is how they can nail President Bush, because like an idiot he gave up on the WMD too soon. When we find evidence the stuff is still out there and Hussein hid or moved it… their attack will be “you freaking idiot, why weren’t you pursuing this, why did you give up so easy??”
It will be “proof” that he invaded Iraq just to nail Hussein for daddy and for the life of me I’ll have a hard time explaining otherwise. President Bush gave in too easily and too often on this and other areas (like the 16 words) and it was just flat stupid.
The corrolary is why did they call off the search?
Do not cooperate with threadjackers.
The American Intel. community probably did review the Saddam documents and know exactly what they say. What good would it do for them to tell the American people the truth, half the country would accuse them of lying to protect Bush. Let individual ‘not government’ organizations translate the documents and maybe ‘most’ of the crazy left wing radical democrats will accept the fact that Saddam did help (Train, Support and finance) with the 9-11 attack and he would eventually have attacked the U.S. with some type of WMD. We really don’t need a foreign nation attacking us with WMD, the dim-wits can be classified as using WMD to destroy the nation if we can count stupidity as WMD.
Bush, alas, takes something from his father’s reluctance to go to the wall for a policy. The reason “…why can’e we just get along…” is that they don’t WANT to get along. An honorable person feels bad if he has to renege on an agreement – a democrat glories in having suckered the enemy.
If they’re sitting in Syria or the Bekka Valley, he doesn’t have much choice in the short term, and all of the players know now and knew it then.
Or course, Bush also sucks at driving the narrative, so there’s some validity to the notion that he gave up the argument prematurely.
Christopher Taylor, I will go a step further. It’s not just the media and the Left, the question regarding the disappearance of WMDs should be a question that is being pursued by the military and pretty much every other organ of the government.
These things don’t just disappear. The US is in the process of destroying its chemical and biological weapons and their disposal takes large, and I mean large, facilities. It’s not something you dump into the Tigris or into the nearest landfill.
The reaction to the disappearance of WMDs in Iraq is puzzling. To say “Bush lied†and end the discussion is not just inane, it shows a lack of seriousness. What puzzles me is the apparent lack of interest in solving this mystery by the military. I realize they are a little busy now, but they could still devote some resources to it.
But I suspect we’ll know what happened eventually.
I agree. I’ve also beat that drum. The main reason that I supported the Iraq invasion was something like 500 tons of anthrax that Iraq could not or would not account for.
I remember what a few ounces of that shit did to the eastern seaboard and how it effected the economy. Imagine what a 5 gal bucket of that stuff would do if dumped off of the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower.
Our fussy disposal of chemical weapons goes far beyond the necessary precautions, primarily because the left wants to punish the military. Saddam is said to have just dumped much in rivers, and buried other stuff out in the desert. If they can’t hang him for war crimes, sic the EPA on him. That would be cruel and unusual punishment, but what the hell.
moneyrunner sez:
I suspect that we already know what happened to them, but we couldn’t prove it without opening another front, and we’ve simply decided against doing that.
That should get you at least 10 minutes on Greta, right?
If it goes off the Sears Tower, I will pray for a good strong wind to carry it over Lake Michigan. Might not do the smelt fishing any godd, however…
Jeff, my point is the docs with the “outrageous, earth-shattering disclosures” won’t hold up on source verification.
And the other docs are restatements of things we’ve already disseminated.
Read the Father of Aardvarks on this.
why exactly did Negroponte release this stuff? Pressure from Hayes? For a PR campaign? To gen up conspiracy theories?
The Father of Aardvarks says:
Jeff, I would be sceptical about guvvies bearing gifts, is all.
From Powerline:
Not to me it doesn’t. I’ve been doing my own blogging on somewhat related topics. I’m close to reaching the conclusion that Duelfer and the ISG were either a) horrifyingly incompetent, or b) operating from an agenda that did not include discovering the truth, or c) both.
I’ve got posts here, here, and here discussing different aspects of the ‘hunt’ for WMDs.
Yeah, yeah. I’m trolling for links again. So sue me! One of my posts is a serious set of questions regarding the final ‘findings’ re: the trucks we initially thought were mobile bio-weapons labs. I’m interested in serious answers, if anyone is game.
Jeff, keep it up. There is a network here that is committed to finding the truth. It may very well be that we’ve got it all wrong, and, in fact, Hussein didn’t have the WMDs. But it is abundantly clear that, even if he didn’t, the world had no real way of knowing. And I’m leaning more and more back to believing that he did have them, in one form or another. The ‘Bush Lied’ meme has to be shattered. Once and for all.
Skeptical, sorry.
My strong suspicion from what I know about intell, is that ALL of the docs have been used. All of the credible ones, that is.
Regardless of the speculation on Powerline, the references to 23mm and 14.5mm “special” ammunition weigh heavily against the interpretation that chemical munitions are being referenced.
The only consistent interpretation I can imagine is that the author of the memo was ignorant of exactly which classes of weapons had chemical munitions available.
I also wondered about the reference to small-caliber air defense munitions. I’m not a jarhead, but I read a lot of military-related stuff, and I’ve never seen any suggestion that that chemical or biological stuff would be attached to shells like that.
Here’s a wild speculation: maybe the SPECIAL AMMUNITION was stuff that had been secretly purchased from our friends France and Russia.
Shortly after we chased Saddam out of Baghdad we found crates of French SAMs whose markings indicated that they were manufactured in 2003, and could have only been delivered after it was clear that military conflict was likely (and in violation of UN sanctions).
Only speculation, of course, but we know very well that Iraq was awash in weapons of all kinds, many of them (even if they weren’t WMD) probably acquired by less than legal means, and needing to be hidden from prying eyes.
So, as evidence builds about Saddam’s WMD programs and ties to al Qaeda, will the Dems have to change their position to the following:
”I was for the Iraq war before I was against it before I was for it.”
That should clear things up….
Regards,
St Wendeler
Another Rovian Conspiracy
You’ll notice the assertions of faith at the top of the documents. Think the ACLU would have a cow if we did the same?
Secular dictatorship my ass.
Careful. It could be a salutation. We’re not homos when we write letters to men that start with “dear”
To anybody But Actus:
In business and the military, we also do not ‘dear’. Point stands.
Really? most sample business letters i’ve seen have ‘dear’ in the salutation.
Just two quick thoughts before I crash:
If we found huge stockpiles of WMD pointed out by Hussein personally with the name of cities they were going to be delivered to and detailed plans on how it was going to be done including signed affadavits… the left would still say it was faked or not a danger or planted. The Democrats would say the war was for nothing, and then point to President Bush’s incompetence for not having personally dug the WMD up.
The UN weapons inspectors and the ISG team likely were not being all that, shall we say, dedicated to their work. I think we’ve seen abundant evidence now that the UN at least in recent years has become a haven of corruption, sloth, incompetence, and even perversion in Africa. The organization is not the Brightest and the Best, it’s the Diplomats and the Rest. I don’t expect they were really on their A Game inspecting Iraq after 10 years of being pushed out, bamboozled, lied to, stonewalled, and shuffled around.
I suspect that’s one aspect we’ll never really know for certain about, but there’s been absolutely no reason to believe otherwise in any examination of the United Nations in the last 5-10 years.
You folks will believe what you desperately desire to believe. I note, however, that after three years you are now pinning your hopes on documents, the purported WMDs having apparently evaporated into the desert air.
Nice second-person there, wmd.
Dear Israeli Air Force,
We waited and waited but you guys never showed. So we decided to save some money and take care of things ourselves. Lord knows you’re busy enough with the Gaza strip and what not.
If Mr. Straw calls wondering why no one answers his phone anymore tell him that the ex-Jordanians pay the bills. Phone service is very expensive these days, he should know that.
We apologize that it took so long for us to take care of things. Rest assured that once we are done “paying our dues” the Islamic worlds hope for the destruction of Israel, as well as free thought in general will be a distant memory.
We hope you had a good passover, many happy returns!
Signed,
The US Military
Hopes? Hopes of what? Getting Bush reelected? Going to war with Iraq again?
Saddam and Natalee?
I’m thinking Hugo Chavez. You look at the map and see how close Aruba is to Venezuela. It would take nothing for a team of frogmen to surface, grab her off the beach where the Dutch kid left her sleeping, and take her back to Caracas to act as a bargaining chip for Hugo’s final showdown with Bush.
Saddam’s role probably just in providing cash, training, expertise—etc.
.
Haven’t read said speculation, but these definitely fall outside of the CW box. They might be special in that they’re AA gun artillery, but there were 14.5mm turret guns in the former Iraqi Army, and possibly 23mm as well, so it’s possible they’re not even all that special.
I love what Nishizono Shinji wrote:
Made me laugh, but it’s also true. There are fundamental problems with documentary evidence that comes from autocratic regimes. Too many people trying to cover their asses and please the boss.
The classic case studies in this field come from the post-Communist world – – especially the “secret police” files from countries like Poland and East Germany. It was typical for people to unearth files that said things like, “Today I signed up Joe Blow to work as an informer.” Joe Blow may have never seen the undercover agent in question, but that agent needed to fill out his quota for the month and slapped him on there. Or maybe Joe Blow signs up to protect himself, but never gives any useful information. Or maybe Joe Blow was a turncoat pig. East bloc countries were roiled with debate over what to do with such lists, and there really were no easy answers.
All this to say that any documentary evidence should be treated with extreme care. Saddam’s regime had to be riddled with lies and distortions. The woodchipper demanded it.
Isn’t it wonderful that those days are gone?
But our intelligence still should have known exactly what Saddam had and where it was stored.
“I’m beginning to think Saddam probably abducted Natalee Holloway, too…”
Psssssssst!
Ixnay, Ude-day!
Ummm….I suspect even worse.
I think that under pressure from UN inspections, Saddam’s generals and scientists did destroy a lot of the unaccounted for stores of chemo and bio. They were playing a double game, complying with the inspectors and reassuring Saddam that he was still getting his money’s worth in R&D. I guess also telling Saddam that they had the inspector’s buffalo’d.
That would explain why there were no destruction docs. Saddam could have seen them.
And i expect they just dumped stuff into the watershed or buried it in the desert.
I would be unsurprised to see fifty gallon drums of sarin or vx or anthrax turn up buried some day.
But the records of the burials would be ultra top secret, to be kept from Saddam. They most likely killed the burial crews.
One of the nerve agents is persistant and one isn’t, i forget which is which. And anthrax decomposes rapidly in exposure to open air, especially weaponized anthrax.
Why so worried about the “anti-war narrative” anyway?
Your counter-counter narrative makes it sounds as if the president has been boxed in and powerless to prosecute war in Iraq when in fact he and his team had near unanimous support from the Congress, the mainstream press and the public.
The war happened. Remember?
Because it’s dishonest, divisive and it mirrors our enemies’ narrative. Oh, and our troops deserve better.
So, an exceedingly popular president acts on insufficient intelligence to commit troops abroad but the virtually powerless “anti-war narrative” is to blame for the troops’ problems in Iraq?
I have no idea where you got your faulty premises from, nor how you arrived at your bizzare conclusion.
But I’m sure you’re absolutely right somewhere. Venus, perhaps.
If you’re trying to respond to what I said, you might want to offer something that addresses dishonesty, divisiveness or the characterization of our troops by the “anti-war” crowd.
I think incomplete intelligence would be a better choice of words for the President’s dilemma, insufficient intelligence seems to be your problem.
…and if a criminal is pointing a gun at you, is it your responsiblity to determine if he is lying about it being loaded?
Sorry for the non-sequitor Pablo. I was posing a question in regard to your comment about the troops deserving better, which I wholeheatedly agree with.
I’ll try to respond to your comment as best as I can. First, the dishonesty comment. We have in a past thread covered at least one specific instance of what I would contend as dishonesty on the part of the president, I don’t believe we ever resolved that one. That is the president’s 2003 claim and subsequent 2006 remark that U.N. weapons inspectors were either not allowed back into Iraq or we’re “denied”. I can provide documentation of that if you like but it’s not difficult to find.
On the next point, I can’t help to agree with you that the anti-war “narrative” is divisive … the natural result of a controversial war abroad and
the so-called wedge politics practiced at home.
Does that make any sense?
As for anti-war dissent mirroring the enemy narrative, I am puzzled by this. Are you suggesting that people who opposed war in Iraq are (1) on the enemy side and would prefer to see the U.S. destroyed? Or are you saying that (2) people “scoring” the war at home should keep their results to themselves until the war is over?
Not sure.
By the way, here is what Rumsfeld thinks. Although I can’t quite tell if he’s suggesting number 1 or number 2.
LIMBAUGH: Let me amend it. Let me ask you one final question. Somebody on my staff is curious to know what your opinion is of embedding reporters with the military. Has that worked? Has that worked as you had hoped?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it has. It worked during the Iraq conflict, and a lot of people who are reporters and journalists were able to work with our troops and see precisely how terrific they are, the wonderful job they do, the kinds of people they are, how professional they are—and the rest of their lives they’re going to have an impression of the American military that will be good for journalism, in my view. Furthermore, they were able, because they were embedded, to see and then give the world and the people of the United States a slice of what was actually happening, real reality, and it was a good thing. More recently, very few people had been being embedded. We’re still offering that opportunity, but there have been far fewer journalists who have stepped up to become embedded.
LIMBAUGH: Why do you think that is?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it’s a funny thing. I asked one reporter about that, and there was kind of the impression left that, “Well, if you got embedded then you were really part of the problem instead of part of the solution and you were almost going over to the other side,” argument. I think that’s an inexcusable thought, and I don’t know if that’s the case.
LIMBAUGH: That’s outrageous.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: It is. (Laughing.)
RUSH: I can’t believe that.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.)
I thought Bush acted on the Joint Authorization for the Use of Force and UN Sec Res 1441, not on intelligence, insufficient or otherwise.
The casus belli was Saddam’s noncompliance, not “We think he’s got this or that…”
No. But you could try analogizing your way out of the difficulties of the situation.
Actus! BABY!
Wassup, mah niggah? Still “stickin’ it to da MAN” I see.
You really need to work on that. It’s perverted.
SB: position
no, it doesn’t matter if he likes it.
Scot, you asked why one should worry about the narrative, and I simply expressed one of the ways in which it harms our interest. This, of course, is different from ascribing motivations or proposing that limits be imposed.
That said, there are those who feel the enemy is just and we are wicked, deserving of a cosmic smackdown. If your (you being generic) scorecard tells you that George Bush is the world’s greatest terrorist and that he is ordering that war crimes be comitted as often as he takes a leak it would be my preference that you shut the hell up, mostly because you’re an idiot feeding false but useful propaganda to our enemies. Being a Constitutionalist, I’d be hard pressed to mandate that. That certainly wouldn’t prevent me from advocating for your voluntary silence or marginalization.
It’s not helpful to have a large vocal contingent insisting that America’s enemy is her government, while we’re at war. People who think this are extremely confused, IMO. But, we deal with it, as if we don’t have enough to worry about. Politics once stopped at the water’s edge. It’s too bad that isn’t the case anymore. And while you’ll never draw the direct line of fire from the speech to the jihadi, this does make our overall task more difficult which impacts no one more than those who are doing all the heavy lifting and all of the bleeding: our troops.
As for the Rumsfeld quote, I don’t think he’s doing either of the two. He’s expressing how utterly wrong he finds the idea that being with our troops is being on the other side. I concur.
More disingenuous attempts at “gotcha” moments by our pal Scot.
1) re: access by weapons inspectors. Someone answered you last time, but I’ll do it again. The key concept the President was expressing was access that was unfettered, and that didn’t involve the bugging of weapons inspectors quarters, etc. Simply verbal shorthand by Bush that you are seizing upon to make it appear like he lied. How helpful of you!
2) The divisiveness of the narrative is driven not by dissent per se, but by (and I don’t know how many times I have to say this) the purposeful repetition of debunked memes that, combined with an ends-justify-the-means opportunism by anti-war folks like you (and many in Congress, who are trying to back track from their own votes authorizing the use of force: WE WERE HOODWINKED, they cry. And yet they had access to raw intelligence. Sad. And transparent), makes gathering international and domestic support difficult. It also has a obvious impact on domestic will to continue the fight.
3) Don’t know if Osama is following Michael Moore’s lead, or the other way around. But somehow, UBL and Zarqawi keep mouthing the same talking points as many anti-war folks. Does that mean that anti-war folks support UBL? No, of course not. At least, not necessarily. It just means they think like him when it comes to particular ideas about the war and America in general.
4) This is a false dichotomy. Honesty is all we ask. And some thought that occurs independent of Think Progress talking points.
Your arguments, which you try to couch in this dispassionate and patient tone of one who is teaching, are truly condescending, particularly given the bullshit you continue to peddle here.
Give it a rest.
For my part, I wouldn’t respond “yes” to either of those, largely because of the way you’ve framed them. “People who opposed war in Iraq” are not a monolithic group. Some made national-interest calculations; some wanted us to retain flexibility in regard to other threats; some argued Iraq wasn’t a threat; some argued Iraq was never a threat; some (ANSWER, Chrissie Hynde, to name just two) wanted us humiliated geopolitically or bloodied militarily.
I also think that there are a broad range of criticisms of the war that don’t have any propaganda value for the insurgency at all—one example would be those who are suggesting that we didn’t dedicate enough troops to get the job done faster, etc. IOW, the criticism “why aren’t you hitting them harder” is different from “why are you hitting them at all.”
If I wanted out of the discussion I would just cut and paste one of your all-purpose bullshit non-sequitors.
Pablo, I think that you have an inflated notion of just how large that group is. You have a tendency to lump those who think the President’s administration is incompetent with those who think that he’s evil.
Yes, we do deal with it, and we’ve dealt with it since 1776, and we’ll continue to deal with it, because this is America, and we are free people who recognize that the only alternative to constant, vocal dissent is repression and autocracy—and even that doesn’t work for long.
So yes, Pablo, we deal with it, even though it means that we can’t wage war as efficiently as the Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or Africa’s many tinpot dictators, or ….
HE PLAYED ON OUR FEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!
algore, Vice President of the United States of America, whilst simultaneously breathing fire.
Shall I find some Chairman of the DNC quotes for you? Something with a YEEEAAAAAARRRGGGGH!!!!, perhaps? How about some Farrakhan? International ANSWER? Maybe some Hollywood. How about Olbermann?
Joo gotta be fugging kidding me.
No, Pablo, I’m not fugging kidding you. I think you seriously overestimate the role of irrational hatred in the opposition to Bush.
Sure, he has his haters. But he has many detractors whose concerns spring from practical matters, not ideology. Bush can never win over the haters, but he can win over his detractors, if he recognizes their critiques as legitimate and acts to address their concerns.
It’s popular at sites like this one for people to say, “It doesn’t matter what the President does, the haters will hate no matter what.” And that’s probably true. But the haters aren’t the only ones out there. Most Americans are, I think, practical people, not irrational haters.
There are a great many people, ignorant both of war and the world around them who follow the lead of their party. They go hyper at the news of friendly fire deaths that are inherent in the nature of war, shooting an enemy who makes a suspicious move is equated with killing an enemy who has already been taken into custody, searched and informed of the duties as a prisoner. They place blame for civilian deaths on the soldiers returning fire instead of on the enemy who fires from behind a civilian screen. This ignorance is reinforced by the MSM and academe, and it is without a doubt enheartening the enemy to keep it up in hope of another Vietnam type buggout.
And how do you think his detractors break down, percentagewise? Even more fun, how do you think I think they break down, since you seem to know?
sequitur, people. Get with it.
“But he has many detractors whose concerns spring from practical matters, not ideology. Bush can never win over the haters, but he can win over his detractors, if he recognizes their critiques as legitimate and acts to address their concerns.”
Oh they’re practical, too practical I would argue, which leads me to doubt your second statement. It’s actually pretty similar to what I ran into trying to convince conservatives to support Clinton.
The other side might agree with the ideas, but they can’t let someone from the wrong side form the next American Majority, ala FDR. Both Clinton and Bush have done their darndest to unite, not divide, but in both cases the opposition has decided, rationally if short-sightedly, that they cannot afford to let them succeed.
Though this was annoying during peace-time, I’m concerned that in war-time it could be fatal. Some sort of crisis may be required to break out of it.
More than any previous president he has the hard DU core that finds fault with everything because they refuse to accept the will of the electorate and hope to change it with their carping. There are also those whose hatred of the system is such that they want to see the United Ststes humbled before the world. Their work product is interchangable in content.
Another part of the problem here is that the practical people who oppose policy continually allow themselves to be co-opted by the haters. We saw this with the anti-war protests and we have seen a steady stream of it up to the criticisms by the former general officers. The media is perfectly content to brush over these distinctions, making the haters appear more powerful than they are. Meanwhile the Dems offer no alternative and instead jump on the bandwagon, carping incessantly, mimicking the haters, and holding out hope that they will return to power on the discontent.
Where will that leave us if it is successful? Well, stranded in the middle of a prolonged war with no leadership and without a long-term plan for victory.
The problem as I see it is that the Dems and there traditional voters are not willing to purge the haters and continue forward in a wartime coalition led by Republicans. They are making a Faustian bargainâ€â€riding the haters’ passion back to power.
I think that’s flat wrong where Bush is concerned, Bez. Under Bush, the Republican party has a terrible record when it comes to bipartisanship. He makes nice noises about it personally, but from the very beginning, when he rammed his tax cuts through, it was clear that his party was gonna do what it wanted. The whole K Street project is just the most egregious example of a party actively working to secure absolute control.
But that’s kind of the nature of the political beast, I agree. It’s hard to find examples of true bipartisanship at any time, and this President has never needed to be bipartisan, because his party’s been in total control.
I’m interested by your next point:
This is another recurring theme at this site that puzzles me. While it’s true that in the last year Bush has seen his political fortunes plunge, I’m uncertain as to what specific Bush policy the opposition has halted through its opposition. Did Bush fail to get any of the support he needed for the war? Did he get fewer troops, less money, less materiel? Did he get turned down on tax cuts or budget decisions?
It seems to me that public opinion has turned against Bush not because he’s been thwarted by the opposition, but because he was able to do almost everything he wanted to, and the public doesn’t like the results.
This is another theme that I just don’t get. You seem to be suggesting, rebel, that the generals were somehow seduced by the haters’ ideas.
Isn’t it possible that the generals came to their own conclusions, independent of any influence from hairy hippies and Kossacks?
I mean, this is the core of the problem. A general comes on and says, “Rumsfeld is an incompetent.” People respond, “That general’s just a hater.” But what about the possibility that this is a person who knows war, understands war, and independently, rationally comes to the conclusion that Rumsfeld is doing a terrible job?
Beet,
I said the practical people and their thoughts on situations are co-opted by the haters, not that they are necessarily working in collusion with the haters or have become haters themselves (though some of them may very well be).
What annoys me in this particular case, as with most of these situations, is that the main thrust of the argument is cast aside and the event is pushed to resemble one of the many tropes of the Bush Lied/Is Incompetent!!! metanarrative. The generals’ beef is based on the transformation program implemented by the President and Rumsfeld, and the generals’ extreme aversion to it. Yet, this message is drowned out (forestalling any real discussion on the matter) and subsumed by the haters’ narrative.
We aren’t here disussing transformation after all, right?
“While it’s true that in the last year Bush has seen his political fortunes plunge, I’m uncertain as to what specific Bush policy the opposition has halted through its opposition. Did Bush fail to get any of the support he needed for the war? Did he get fewer troops, less money, less materiel? Did he get turned down on tax cuts or budget decisions?”
As any good liberal can tell you, soft power is just as important as hard power, especially in fighting a war of ideas. Our soft power assets have been conspicuously MIA in this conflict, if not engaged in unrelenting friendly fire. I’d hoped for better.
I have to respectfully disagree, reb, in this way – – where the mainstream media are concerned, I don’t think the “narrative” that the generals are amplifying is the “bush lied” story.
The coverage I’ve seen has basically said, “The generals don’t like the way Rumsfeld runs the military.” There’s been talk of transformation, and talk of tactical mistakes in Iraq. But we haven’t seen the media framing this as “Generals are against the war,” as much as it’s “Generals think Rumsfeld is doing a lousy job.” There’s a huge difference there.
Of course, if you go to Kos or Atrios or elsewhere here, the narrative is different, but that’s life in the blogosphere.
But when I see the generals talking in the mainstream press, and I read the coverage that follows, I see a narrative that’s all about the practical questions of how to win the war—not a narrative about the root causes of the war, and certainly not a revival of the “did Bush lie” question.
Now, you may be conflating these two narratives, lumping the generals in with the ANSWER protestors, but I don’t think the general public is.
I’m not sure what assets you’re referring to, Bez, or what you think they should be doing.
Public opinion has turned against Bush because the public never hears anything positive about him. If it were not for blogs ad the internet, Bush would have been long gone.
And wow, I just noticed something in your comment, rebel, that I think is really important. You refer to the:
… as if the two accusations were part of the same story. I’ll submit to you that the two narratives – one that says Bush is a liar, and the other that says he’s incompetent – are dramatically different.
The first basically argues that Bush is evil, or close to it – a bad character with bad goals who can’t be trusted. For simplicity’s sake, call it the Kos narrative.
The second narrative is much more forgiving – in the sense that, it suggests that Bush’s goals may be worth pursuing, but that the problems have been in the execution. This is the generals’ narrative.
Now, if I’m Bush, and I’m trying to get my numbers north of 38, and win the kind of political support I need to do what I want to do, I focus on winning over the “Bush is incompetent” folks. Because incompetence, like ignorance, can be cured, both symbolically (his numbers would bounce up if he fired Rummy, I’ll betcha), and practically.
The opposite tack, of course, is to ignore all opposition, whether it’s motivated by concern for the practical (the generals) or partisan warfare. But if Bush keeps doing that, then he drives the fight-the-war-better crowd into alliance with the no-war-ever crowd.
Then the two narratives really do fuse.
Beet,
So many things tangled up here. First, Bush Lied/Is Incompetent!!! is the metanarrative. The Incompetent!!! turn only came after the Lied!!! meme failed to result in his defeat. This changeover can be seen in all parts of the unhinged Left (including the Koskids). And it is not the generals’ narrative in the sense that they are in line with said Left (I’m assuming this is true for most of them, anyway).
The generals’ think the structural and philosophical transition is a grave mistake and thus, an incompetent move. That’s why many of these generals are the same who wanted a much larger invasion force in Afghanistan and Iraq, and/or they thought the Iraq invasion was a mistake. They are old school Realists who subscribe to the Cold War defense strategy. This is all fine for debate, but it isn’t the same thing as the Left’s Incompetent!!! metanarrative, which pertains to everything Bush does. And instead of being a result of his Evil Nature it is a result of his complete stupidity (although it is also a result of his Evil Nature since, in the process, he treats his poor generals like poo), but both reasons stem from a presumed character flaw this is essential to his being.
But this shows exactly what I am trying to say. The generals’ practical concerns are completely overlooked and subsumed by the overarching metanarrative. So, people don’t actually talk about defense strategy and the structure of the military, but about Bush’s flaws.
Now, the way to combat this is to definitely not give credence to the metanarrative but to challenge its assumptions. Firing Rumsfeld would be a huge mistake. Instead the President and the Republicans should take of the kid-gloves and battle the metanarrative. This is what Rumsfeld did today in his presser by talking about the complicated nature of transition.
In short, there is no appeasing the “Bush Is Incompetent!!!†crowd because they are more or less the same as the “Bush Lied!!!†crowd. He needs to break up the metanarrative so that it loses all credibility, and the still-hinged will come along.
Social Security reform. And look at the unprecedented votes against his SCOTUS picks, and the vile attacks on their persons. A huge swath of Dems oppose anything Bush wants, simply because it’s Bush that wants it.
How would you explain Dick Durbin’s remarks on the floor of the Senate regarding guantanamo?
runningrebel sez:
Except those whose problem with Rumsfeld is stylistic and not substantive. 2 stars whining that “He didn’t listen to me” really ought to STFU. Any one who’s ever been in any sort of management knws one simple truth: You can’t listen to everybody, and those you don’t listen to aren’t going to like it.
Interesting. You seem to be suggesting that narratives (or metanarratives) come from the media, and that they are drawn up in some conscious manner, with a purpose and a goal (i.e. one didn’t work, let’s try another).
You also seem to be dismissing the possibility that the narrative was created by actual evidence on the ground.
My take is this: The “Bush is incompetent” story, while widely accepted among Dems for years, really took hold starting about a year ago. The Schiavo case … the Harriet Miers nomination … the disastrous response to Katrina … the huge deficit … the collapse of Social Security reform … the prescription drug problem … and of course, the legal investigations into Plame, Abramoff, etc … and of course, the continuing death and lack of control in Iraq … all that is evidence that has buttressed the notion that Bush and his party don’t really know what they’re doing.
What steered that narrative, Reb, would be the facts on the ground. It wasn’t concocted in some evil liberal lab (after all, as we know, the Dems aren’t organized enough to do much); it just happened, as people watched and listened.
(I know that many, like W. Wallis above, think that these “facts on the ground” are just media creations designed to tear down the President. I disagree, but let’s say that the media really does actively want to hurt him: the President has given them plenty of ammunition and has only himself to blame, as he and his staff know the rules of the game quite well, I should think.)
So what we’re asking here is, where does the narrative come from? Does it come from evil haters who hate? Does it come from an evil media that hates? Or does it come from real things happening in real time? Is “incompetence” just a baseless charge, or is there a base to it?
There’s always the Pablo theory:
What the Pablo Theory doesn’t allow for is the possibility that a huge swath of Dems oppose what Bush wants because it’s demonstrably bad. Take Social Security reform. The President went out and talked up his program. A robust debate about pros and cons followed. Bush had every opportunity to explain his goals. And frankly, people didn’t like his program. It had too many unanswered questions, and it didn’t really pass the smell test (i.e. if the problem is that SS is running out of money, why start Personal Accounts that will add billions in new costs?).
They know what they have in SS, they like it, and they told him in no uncertain terms that they don’t want a privatized system. The Pablo Theory suggests that this was all motivated by a personal animosity against Bush. That animostity may be there, but what tipped the scales was the proposal itself, not some metanarrative about him as a person.
I wouldn’t say that. But the media are the willing accomplices of those who do originate the metanarratives. After all, back in the ‘90s 89% of them voted for a presidential candidate who never received more than 49% of the popular vote.
Suppose it were, say, the RNC coming up with metanarratives about, say, Bill Clinton. And suppose one metanarrative didn’t succeed. What would you expect to happen next? That they’d just give up?
BTW, the “facts on the ground” had at least as much to do with the Clinton metanarratives as they do with any metanarratives about the current Administration.
Come off it, beetroot [redundant?] I have seen them make sausage long enough to know they never put any objectivity in it. They don’t even try to hide it, openly bragging that they were not interested in covering the whole story, they were only looking for discrepancies. Kinda like they covered abu Graib. Even though the Army had discovered the actions of the guards and brought charges against them and released the news the way all disciplinary actions are released, the media treated it as if the administration was covering up and only the brilliant reportage kept the story from being swept under the rug.
Of course the RNC, the DNC, and every other advocate out there tries to steer the story. That’s what advocates do.
But I guess what I’m saying is that the narratives don’t tend to stick unless there’s evidence to support them. The Clinton-is-a-philanderer narrative stuck because he was a womanizer. If there’d been no affairs, no lies, the narrative wouldn’t have stuck.
The media was an equally “willing” accomplice when the narrative was about Saddam’s WMD’s. But the narrative fell apart when the evidence failed to materialize.
I mean, the vibe I get here is that people like W. Wallis think that the media sits around in some citadel somewhere and decides what it wants to do, and does it, regardless of what reality says. That’s just wrong. There’s too many moving parts and too many independent actors to even begin to compare “the media” to the RNC.
The fact is, the war has dragged on for three years, and Iraq is more dangerous and less in our control than it was two years ago. The fact is, the deficit is completely out of control, and the president shows no signs of fiscal conservativism at all. The fact is, major players in the construction of the Republican majority have been indicted by the Justice Department. The fact is, we still haven’t caught Osama bin Laden. The fact is, when the President trots out his major social policy initiatives, like Social Security privatization or medical savings accounts, people don’t like them.
To say nothing of the spying, torture, and propagandizing for which this administrtaion has been responsible.
(And shame on you, Walter, for trying to brush off Abu Grahib. That was a sick and disgusting perversion of American values, executed at the very moment when we are fighting to export these values. The military did a crappy job of stopping it, and plenty of evidence suggests that it had nothing to do with “bad apples” and everything to do with official policy. I applaud the press for bringing it to the attention of the American people.)
Bragging? Like how?
What does Terri Schaivo have to do with competence? What does Harriet Miers have to do with competence?
Your disagreement with opinions or preferences does not incompetence make.
Do you mean this “disaterous response”? News flash: The hurricane was the disater, not the reponse.
This is a PERFECT example of a manufactured metanarrative that simply doesn’t match the facts on the ground. Thanks for trying to run with it.
Uh, we’re at war. Although, admittedly he’s never vetoed a single spending bill.
You mean the Democrat driven death of Social Security reform, right? It would have had to exist before it could collapse, no?
<blockquote>. the prescription drug problem …</blockquote>
What does any of that have to do with Bush’s competence? Oh, he did have a picture taken with Abramoff, right? Crank up the narrative!
Wow, lack of control in a forign war zone. Damn, Bubba would have had this wrapped up already, right? Kerry too, right? Bullshit. Lack of perfection is not incompetence.
…at least among those determined to believe it.
Who has a better plan, and where the hell is it? Here’s John Kerry’s current plan, now that we don’t seem to need his 10 million jobs plan. He’s got an Iraq exit strategy that looks awfully familiar. It looks like Vietnam.
Does that strike you as competent?
Nonsense. I’ve never said any such thing. What I said is that there is a huge swath of Dems that will oppose anything Bush wants simply because he wants it. There may well be a significant group that think his plans are demonstrably bad, but if they’re in government they should be offering better solutions instead of just criticism. I’m not hearing much of that, and it might be because that doesn’t fit the approved metanarrative.
Oh, grow up.
That isn’t what the troops are saying. You know, the people who are there. Biased, inaccurate reporting is a major complaint among those serving.
And Afghanistan has dragged on for four years. Just how long is an acceptable war, beet? 6 months? 12? 18? How fast does a war have to be over for the prosecution to be considered competent? Have we ever fought such a war?
Like who? You’re not going to tell that you think a lobbyist is a major player in the construction of the Republican majority, are you?
How about on the cover of Time?
Crappy job? Arresting those responsible and bringing them before a general court martial? Should they have buried them up to their neck and stoned them? How about pushing a wall on to them?
I don’t brush off abu, but on the other hand you must not know what goes on in prisons all over the world, very likely in your own town. I also believe General Karpinski, had she been a man, would have received worse than a letter and early out. The Army has some excuse – they thought that, since the guards were prison guards in civilian life they would need less supervision. One thing we do know, all the culprits are democrats.
Beet,
Well, I don’t have the time or will to get into the intricacies of metanarratives unfortunately, but it seems you don’t quite understand them. That’s not a knock at youâ€â€I’m just saying. Maybe if this discussion is still going on tonight we can get back in it. Or maybe Jeff will read this and chime in (Lord knows Jeff has metanarratives down coming from English departments. And I think he posted on it before if someone wants to find it).
Metanarratives are created and circulated uncritically by groups with similar interests and perspectives, so it is not a stretch to think the media promulgates them. This doesn’t mean that people in the media say “Ooooh, I like that metanarrative, let’s go with itâ€Â, but it does mean that they repeat the tropes without questioning the premise.
But the statement you highlighted doesn’t suggest that metanarratives come from the media. They are, however, disseminated through all forms of communication, which includes the media. And they can be (and usually are) consciously constructed. So, yes, at some level there was probably a conscious effort to move away from Lied!!! to Incompetent!!!, but it was also done elsewhere on an intuitive level once Bush won the election and the impeachment drive fizzled. When and where that happened is not as important as the fact that it was picked up without scrutiny and continues.
And it continues, apparently, here with you. All of the issues you mentioned have there own, complex story and, as Pablo argued, Bush’s competence level are not an important factor in any of them. All of these issues have been fleshed out here before and the fact that you disregard those discussions shows the power of the metanarrative. It allows a person to ignore anything that doesn’t fit.
Another common defense of the metanarrative is the appeal to common knowledge or consensus belief. Your comments are full of this.
But I’m out of time.
While Rumsfeld is supposedly incomptent for micromanaging, Bush is personally responsible for what junior enlisted yahoos were doing in a prison thousands of miles away…
I wonder if Karpinsky thinks Rummy should resign.
runningrebel sez:
Yup. America is currently lousy with it, due in overwhelming part to the media.
It’s become clear that truth is a secondary consideration. Controlling the media (the old) and K-grad Ed (the young) is just too much power not to exercise, I guess, purpose be damned. I’m beginning to understand how the native Americans must have felt…
Bush is responsible for all of it, cuz he’s the top dog. So maybe it’s Mike Brown that was formally responsible for FEMA’s Katrina response. But Bush hired him, and the buck stops with Bush.
As for Pablo’s responses, I’m starting to think the guy really lives in la-la land:
HArriet Miers was a singularly unqualified to be a Supreme Court justice. Virtually everybody agreed: nice lady. Not qualified. Her nomination absolutely reeked of short-sighted cronyism.
That’s exactly what’s going on here at PW, isn’t it? There’s a basic narrative—the media is out to get Bush, because it hates America and is ignorant of the true threat—and everything gets crammed into that framework.
So you get someone like Pablo saying:
… when it’s perfectly clear from the public record that Jack Abramoff was a key player in the construction of the Republican majority.
Another common defense of the metanarrative is the appeal to common knowledge or consensus belief.
Another common move here at PW, where a majority of visitors embrace the evil-biased-media meme, and refuse to accept the possibility that the media is actually telling something close to the truth.
Oh, beet. How quickly you forget. Or, modify the narrative, as it were.
You know who Harry Reid is, I presume?
You’re full of shit, beet. The Miers nomination was a reach across the aisle, something you insist Bush doesn’t do. Which is a less polite way of saying that you’re egregiously manipulating the narrative.
As for competence, one wants to examine the end result. The right side of the aisle is tickled with that. You know, the people who elected Bush.
OK, you tell me how Abramoff got all these Republicans elected. Show your work. Make the logical connection by which a lobbyist plays a major role in the construction of Republican dominance of the government. The first thing you should probably do is look up the word lobbyist.
Wonderful. Cite the record.
What did he used to do before?
A lobbyist who works just one side soon becomes an ex-lobbyist. One can only wonder how Harriet would have decided on this last case when
Roberts surprised some of his supporters.
And Brown would have been just as much at fault had he attempted to convert FEMA into a first responder. Notice that a bunch of temp housing in New Orleans was almost ready for occupancy and the locals complained that they spoiled their view and da mayor revoked permission to occupy. Pay no attention to those 500 busses rusting in the parking lot, it’s all Bush’s fault.
Note, please, that that’s exactly what happened to Abramoff.
And Pablo, congratulations, you’ve found a quote in which Harry Reid tries to make the President’s right wing look bad! Amazing. Nice lady. Not qualified. A reach across the aisle? He hires his personal lawyer and it’s a reach across the aisle? Come on, man.
(But it is true that Dems probably would have let her nomination through, since they’d’ve preferred her to an Alito-like character.)
And as for Abramoff, let’s start with Wikipedia:
“The monetary influence of Jack Abramoff was substantial. Abramoff was deeply associated with Tom DeLay’s K Street Project to bring Republican dominance to Washington lobbying. [3] From 2000 to 2006, he personally donated money to campaign funds and Leadership PACs of numerous Republican candidates for Congress. [4] Under his guidance, his Indian tribe clients loosened their traditional ties to the Democratic Party, giving Republicans two-thirds of the $2.9 million they donated to federal candidates since 2001. [5] He raised $100,000 for the reelection of George W. Bush, making him a Bush Pioneer. Abramoff and his wife gave $10,000 to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund, shortly before Abramoff joined Greenberg Traurig, which forgave over $314,000 in legal fees incurred by the Bush Campaign in the 2000 Florida election recount.”
The Washington Post wrote:
“Abramoff was among the lobbyists most closely associated with the K Street Project, which was initiated by his friend Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), now the former House majority leader, once the GOP vaulted to power. It was an aggressive program designed to force corporations and trade associations to hire more GOP-connected lobbyists in what at times became an almost seamless relationship between Capitol Hill lawmakers and some firms that sought to influence them.”
But we’re way off thread here, aren’t we? I’m sorry.
Here’s a thought to steer us back to thread: regarding the Bush-haters vs. Bush detractors, and the relative importance of the documents cited at the top of the post.
Of the documents, Jeff suggested that
But in conversation here, I think we all agree that many anti-war (or, better put, anti-Bush) Americans will not change their narrative about the President. Those folks are virtually beyond his reach.
But then there are the detractors – – the folks who didn’t hate him at first but have stopped supporting him and the war (as reflected in his sinking polls). What does it take to win them over?
I just read this, by Greg D. at Belgravia Dispatch. Greg has concluded that Rumsfeld is an incompetent, and that Bush is basically incompetent for leaving Rumsfeld in place:
Documents like those cited above have no significance to a detractor like this. GD has looked at the situation and concluded that the problems are tactical. Narratives and metanarratives have nothing to do with it. Nor is he signing on to some larger anti-war movement because he hates Bush. He’s looking at the situation and saying something like, “This sucks. And if the President doesn’t fix it, he sucks.”
So while I’m all for more documents, and more translations, and I love that bloggers are out there looking closely at this stuff, its significance is questionable for two reasons:
– The documents themselves may or may not be legit;
– The country doesn’t need more evidence proving that we’re in Iraq for good reasons. We need evidence that we’re recognizing mistakes and correcting our course.