Come out swingin'

Over the last few days, members of the Bush administration have come out with their scripted talking points regarding the Iraq war amidst waves of criticism from all corners of America. Let’s summarize these talking points into a concise list so we can easily parse through the message:

· Everyone had the same intelligence and came to the same conclusion.
· Democrats thought Saddam had WMD too.
· Democrats are contradicting themselves for political gain.
· War critics are re-writing history and are dishonest.
· Claiming that intelligence was fabricated dishonors the soldiers in Iraq.

Of course this is all utter rubbish. Fred Kaplan of Slate does an excellent job of breaking down President Bush’s Veterans Day speech and points out the falsehoods and misleading information contained within. A New York Times editorial also debunks the latest PR campaign from the Bushies.

I’d like to address a couple of these points myself. First, regarding the same intelligence claim, doesn’t it make sense that if everyone looked at the same “cooked” intelligence that they would all come to the same conclusion? Isn’t that exactly what you wanted to happen Mr. President? Of course, not everyone saw the same intelligence, as what was sent to Congress didn’t contain crucial dissenting views.

The most outrageous claim above is the one concerning dishonesty. Vice President Dick Cheney mentioned this in a speech today and while Cheney is certainly an expert on dishonesty (the last time he was truthful on any topic was circa 1620), his claims could only be backed up by further falsehoods regarding pre-war intelligence. At this point, it has become blatantly obvious to me that this administration flat-out lied to get the US into this war. The Downing Street memo, which stated that the intelligence would be fixed around the policy, was the smoking gun. Unfortunately, only the Progressive media saw it that way. The mainstream media (and some of my friends) largely chose to downplay the memo, perhaps thinking such blatant manipulation and conspiracy couldn’t happen. I guess the media forgot about Watergate and the level of conspiracy involved at that time. This memo, and the fact that Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld wanted to invade Iraq back in 2001 are two of the more salient points when discussing the dishonesty of this war.

Oh, and what about the claim that war critics are dishonoring our soldiers in Iraq by questioning the pre-war intelligence? Personally, I can’t think of anything more dishonorable than sending people to die in the wake of lies. Can you?