Fighting back against the domestic insurgents
Revisionist History
Antiwar myths about Iraq, debunked.
BY PETER WEHNER, deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House’s Office of Strategic Initiatives
Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations–the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn’t possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so–and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them. Let me examine each in turn:
The president misled Americans to convince them to go to war.
The Bush administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments
Because weapons of mass destruction stockpiles weren’t found, Saddam posed no threat.
Promoting democracy in the Middle East is a postwar rationalization.These, then, are the urban legends we must counter, else falsehoods become conventional wisdom. And what a strange world it is: For many antiwar critics, the president is faulted for the war, and he, not the former dictator of Iraq, inspires rage. The liberator rather than the oppressor provokes hatred. It is as if we have stepped through the political looking glass, into a world turned upside down and inside out.
Read The Whole Thing!
DEFEATING TERROR
DESPITE THE POLS, WE’RE WINNING
By Ralph Peters
Plenty remains to be done. We must see our Iraq mission through to the end - unless the Iraqis fail themselves. We must restore integrity and common sense to our foreign policy by ceasing to pretend that the Saudis are our friends and by living up to our rhetoric about support for democracy. And we need to take a very hard line on China’s currency manipulation and cheating on trade.
Still, any fair-minded review of the last several years of American engagement abroad would conclude that, despite painful mistakes, we’ve changed the world for the better. The results have been imperfect, as such results always will be. But the bewildering sense of gloom and doom fostered my many in the media is as unjustified as it is corrosive.
Our global report card right now? A for effort. B for results. C for consistency. D for media integrity. And F for domestic political responsibility.
Read the whole article here.
UPDATE: Go visit Dean Esmay for the latest Carnival of the Liberated
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:15 pm
I wonder if Mr. Wehner would be willing to discuss the infamous Downing Street memo which claims that Bush and Blair discussed, and I take this straight from H.D.S. Greenway’s column in today’s Globe, “the possibility of painting a surveillance plane in United Nations colors and flying it over Iraq in the hope that Saddam Hussein’s gunners would take the bait and shoot it down.” I suspect Mr. Wehner would remain mum on this subject.
And for Gregg, who appears to think in stark “Muslim: BAD, Zionist: GOOD” terms, Greenway further mentions the “Lavon Affair”, a topic that has long been unmentionable in the mainstream media:
Israel went out on a limb in the summer of 1954 when it instigated an operation against Egypt that, when finally exposed, became known as the “Lavon Affair,” after Israel’s then minister of defense, Pinhas Lavon. Gamal Abdel Nasser was just coming to power in Egypt, and Israel wanted to discredit him and his government. So agents recruited by Israel set off bombs at the American libraries of Alexandria and Cairo, making it look as if the Egyptians were responsible. The fiasco caused a first-class scandal at the time.
Now Gregg, I ask you once again: Does this historically documented case of an Israeli false flag “terrorist” attack against American interests deserve any attention whatsoever in light of the attacks of 9/11?
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
John, Stay focussed my friend (and I use that term loosely). Kevin, posted on a very well written article in today’s Wall St. Journal by Peter Wehner which debunks every canard and shibboleth that people like you continually perpetuate about 9-11, Iraq, and the War on Terror in general.
Your conspiracy theories are merely a diversion John that you choose to focus on because you cannot back up any of the claims that you and your conspiracy theory friends inexorably attempt to advance ragarding 9-11, Iraq, and the larger WOT. Wehner debunks every fallacious claim that:
1.The president misled Americans to convince them to go to war.
2.The Bush administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments
3.Because weapons of mass destruction stockpiles werenâ??t found, Saddam posed no threat.
4.Promoting democracy in the Middle East is a postwar rationalization.
Where is he wrong John? Stick to the facts(the ones he cites to substantiate his argument)I look forward to hearing point by point where Wehner is incorrect in his summation of the facts. If you cannot, then we will assume that you concur with him and President Bush.
Gregg J
Gregg J
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Let’s just allow for the truth to reveal itself in the weeks and months to come. I have a sense that Mr. Wehner’s story will weaken. Gregg, I respect you for your convictions, but you’re undoubtedly going to be on the wrong side of history if you continue to support this administration.
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Case and point. You accuse me of not dealing with reality and facts and all you deal in in speculation on conspiracy theories that will materialize in the future. You may want to take your own advice and focus on the facts. I will also conclude that you can’t rebut the claims from teh post:)
May 24th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Kudos for linking to a Journal article that non-subscribers can actually read.
A very detailed piece, but from a high level, would it not have more credibility coming from someone who isn;t in the employ of the administration?
Not to mention that the WSJ is a card-carrying member of the agenda-driven MSM (though they do come from the right)?
If we are not to trust the NYT not to bend context to their will, explain how we should trust the WSJ (or the author in question, i.e. the Bush administration)?
May 24th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
The WSJ was rated this year as one of the most leftward leaning newspapers in the country.
“A Measure of Media Bias,” a December 2004 study conducted by Tim Groseclose of the University of California, Los Angeles and Jeff Milyo of the University of Missouri, stated that: One surprise is the Wall Street Journal, which we find as the most liberal of all 20 news outlets [studied]. We should first remind readers that this estimate (as well as all other newspaper estimates) refers only to the news of the Wall Street Journal; we omitted all data that came from its editorial page. If we included data from the editorial page, surely it would appear more conservative.
Second, some anecdotal evidence agrees with our result. For instance, Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid (2001) note that “The Journal has had a long-standing separation between its conservative editorial pages and its liberal news pages.” Paul Sperry, in an article titled the “Myth of the Conservative Wall Street Journal,” notes that the news division of the Journal sometimes calls the editorial division “Nazis.” “Fact is,” Sperry writes, “the Journal’s news and editorial departments are as politically polarized as North and South Korea.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Journal
I read the WSJ daily (as you have probably inferred by now Doug:) and one can easily see the letward bias which pervades the front page and elswhere. The editorial page is right of center (if one excludes thier penchant for advocating a de facto open borders policy), however the article written by Whener as an opinion piece - not an editorial piece provides ample evidence to support his claims about the innacurate claims perpetuated by critics of the Bush admin about Iraq and the general WOT. He is not speculating or “editorializing” but backs up every point he makes with evidence directly emenating from bi-partisan government organizations both here and abroad. His vocational position and ideology are esseentially irrelevant. Facts are facts and they can be stubborn things.
The differnence with the NY Times is that the Grey Lady routinely attempts to disguise thier opinions as objective “news.” They do this by intentionally distorting the facts and conveniently omitting select words and phrases to alter contextual perception and conveyance to readers. Their leftward leaning bias has been well documented by people accross the political and ideological spectrum. Most don’t care that their editorial page is left of center.(Except for when they cross the line and leak classified national security information from sources in the CIA) That is called editorial discretion and they have that right to voice thier political and ideological bents.But there are a great many Americans who are a greatly bothered by their ajenda driven “journalism” as evidienced by their rapidly diminishing circulation.
The same can be said of the WSJ’s editorial board (we actually interveiwed the deputy editor of the editorial page Mr. Daniel Henninger a few weeks ago while he was in San Fran interviewing George Schultz.)They have every right to voice their “libertarian” beliefs. But those who are presenting the “news” in a purportedly objective fashion have no “right” to intentionally slant that coverage to reflect their political leanings.
In short, the primary reason that so many people don’t “trust” the NY Times and other elite-MSM news organizations (CNN, ABC,NBC,ABC, etc..) is that they routinely engage in agenda driven journalism- when personal/political opinion is disguised as objective news. Mr. Whener’s opinion piece was not part of the “news” section (i.e. the front page). Whether what he says can be “trusted” or not can be readily determined by evaluating the quality and authenticity of the information he presents to substantiate his main assertions. After reading his peice, I believe that a reasonable person would easily conclude that the information Whener presents can easily be trusted and verified. Virtually every claim he makes, he backs up with documented evidence from credible domestic and foreign intelligence agencies and government bodies. Now, the front page of the Journal is quite a different matter.
Gregg J
Gregg J
May 25th, 2006 at 10:29 am
DougH is of course right to question the credibility of a piece written by a government insider. Further questioning of the true independence of Congressional committees is also reasonable. The Italian parliament fingered Ahmed Chalabi and Michael Ledeen last summer as two of the conspirators in the forged Niger documents that were used as evidence presented before the U.N. in the case for war. Chalabi, long a darling of the administration, and Ledeen, a member of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, were influential consultants to the government in the run up to war. The fact that they are apparently linked to intentional forgeries is worrisome, at least to those of us outside the grasp of the mainstream media’s lies. And what of the infamous Downing Street memo that indicated Bush was intent on fixing the facts around his already determined war policy? Is this not potentially very damaging information that should have resulted in front and center mainstream media attention? If true, this would directly refute Mr. Wehner’s claim that Bush did not intentionally mislead the public. Will Gregg and Kevin explore the Downing Street memo issue further? They certainly have the platform to do it.
May 25th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Dear Gregg,
Great piece! I am, of course, referring to your comments. lol. This is almost better than the original article.
I have e-mail Kevin about a serious situation that I would like the both of you, along with Brian of the Radio Equalizer, to work on. Please?! Here is my post on it. Thank you.
May 25th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Yes, Doug asked a reasonable and thoughtful question the credibility of the piece and I was correct in supplying him with the appropriate response.
However, the fact remains that regardless of Whener’s political persuasion or vocation, he still cites bullet proof evidence. I am curious John if you can debunk any of the information he cites.
As to the Downing Street memos. Don’t make me laugh. They were debunked and disproven a long time ago. The only people still talking about them are crazy conspiracy theorists like you John.
The question still remains: What documented information that Whener cites can you debunk?
Gregg J
May 25th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
I suppose we are at a crossroads. I am simply not willing to accept the independence of Congressional and intelligence reports, and given that we are starting with the assumption that these reports are “bullet proof”, I no longer feel further debate can be had.
Keep up the good work, Gregg. Stay passionate but accept the revelations to come. You’ve been betrayed by this government, and the proof will flow from Fitzgerald’s probe.