Informal, unscientific poll....

[hetron]

In a previous thread, I had gotten into an argument with a poster or two over whether or not the Bush administration had gotten involved with Iraq on the basis of only flimsy evidence of WMD's. As one poster stated it;

[ QUOTE ]

...I guess what you're saying is that George Bush didn't care whether there were WMD stockpiles in Iraq or not, was going to push to invade the country to satisfy his agenda, then deal with the possibility that they didn't exist if that's the way it turned out. Doubt if that is remotely close to reality.


[/ QUOTE ]

The poster also stated that believing in such a fantastic idea was something that only those on the leftist political fringe actually believed.

I just want to conduct a little informal, unscientific 2+2 poll regarding this issue. How many people here believe that the Bush administration in some way skewed, altered or embellished the truth about the intel available on Iraqi WMD's and/or the Iraqi government's connection to Al Qaeda in order to justify the war against Iraq and the insane Hussein? Just a simple yes or no response will be fine. You don't have to put your reasons for thinking so (though obviously you can if you want).

Again, no real reason for doing this, just curious what people on here think.

I guess I'll go first.

Answer: Yes

Reason: The fact that no credible evidence that the massive WMD was assembled or being assembled has come out either before or after the invasion took place, leads me to believe that Bush and Co. had an agenda to fulfill in Iraq. The Paul O'Neill book stating that the neo cons in the cabient had this agenda going into the White House pretty much seals it for me. O'Neill might be sore as hell for being fired, but I don't think he would go as far as make up fairy tales in order to get back at the administration.

[Chris Alger]

It isn't even arguable. Among other reasons, the mere fact that Bush falsey characterized UNSCOM's conclusions and can't identify the "intelligence" he used to support his statements shows that he deliberately tried to mislead the public.

What you're dealing here is something that anthropoligists recognize as taboo. Many Americans cannot accept evidence that the President and national leadship are capable of actual evil, no matter who they kill or why. They simply refuse to entertain the possibility.

[MMMMMM]

Pretty bizarre if you consider it to be evil to have removed a regime which actually was evil.

[Utah]

. Many Americans cannot accept evidence that the President and national leadship are capable of actual evil

And you cannot accept any evidence that the President and National Leadership are not evil. Just curious, how do you think the national leadership staged that whole phony 9/11 thing? That was a hell of a bambozzle don't you think.

[bigpooch]

If the actual TRUTH were known about 9/11, the average
American would simply disbelieve it. Most humans on the
planet are "sheeople" and with the risk of offending almost
everyone on the planet, don't even realize how evil the
world really is! How does a passport survive while the
recordings of black box recorders are left unrevealed?

Isn't hilarious that the media spins stories to get the
American public to think in a certain way? Are the media
so easily manipulated or controlled or are sheeople so
stupid? Although I don't discount the remote possibility
that the engineers of what happenened on 9/11 were Americans
it is probably more likely that Saudis funded an operation,
American intelligence were aware of it, and the proper
execution of the operation was allowed to completion. Most
likely, this provided the necessary stage to use military
force in Afghanistan and Iraq and most probably was because
George Sr. or the power brokers just wanted to get rid of
Saddam Hussein (btw, aren't some of the power brokers in
Saudi Arabia?).

[CCass]

Would you care to enlighten me? What is the "actual TRUTH about 9/11"? What do you KNOW that the sheeople do not?

[bigpooch]

I don't know what I know that the typical person doesn't
know, but I do know that I can think for myself. It doesn't
matter if you have the right building blocks but can't build
very much! You can get some of the pieces at:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/index.html

and you can draw any conclusions and form any opinions on
your own. Don't let anyone sway your own analysis!

Also, if you want to be thorough, check out the sources and
think and rethink what really did happen. Discuss it with
some really smart people that are open minded and keep an
open mind but reject what couldn't be possible. Put your
mind into the minds of the participants, how they view the
world, what makes them tick (and what ticks them off!) and
how they will likely act and react. Talk some more, listen
to what people think happened and why they think so. Be as
objective as humanly possible!

After you have done all that, you may get closer to the
truth and IMHO, I am still very far from the TRUTH (the
more one knows, the less one knows) but I am convinced of
this:

The continued occupation of American forces in Saudi Arabia
years after the Gulf War, led Osama bin Laden (et al) to a
jihad against America.

Maybe if the first Bush Administration were better at
understanding the various views of the Saudi people and the
possible ramifications, they would not have continued to
leave any troops behind. They thought some fringe groups
were bluffing and called them but were shown the stone cold
nuts! Still, the American foreign policy could have been
based on what Bush Sr. thought (at that time) was the best
informed decision and unfortunately, didn't think history
would unravel as it did.

Also, when I look at the information, something really
stinks to high heaven! Thankfully, I believe in that in
the end, real justice will be meted out, so I don't really
get too stressed out about this! But it seems there were so
many things that the cognoscente want to hide, and my gut
feeling is that some of these things, if known to the
American people, are so utterly despicable, not many common
folk would believe it because they wouldn't want to believe
it!

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
Most humans on the planet are "sheeople" and with the risk of offending almost everyone on the planet, don't even realize how evil the world really is!

[/ QUOTE ]

Will higher taxes and bigger government fix this problem [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]?

[bigpooch]

Yes, as soon as Bush Sr. was involved, it was inevitable
regardless of any evidence. Does anyone know whether it was
true that Iraq had Russian intelligence that the British
were already planning to invade Iraq about a year in
advance?

And the hubris of Saddam Hussein: why tangle up with a real
heavyweight like Bush Sr.?

[MMMMMM]

You should change the question from "in some way" to "quite significantly" (re: skewed, altered or embellished). Reason: a little skewing is fairly common, politically speaking--and is vastly different than large-scale alteration or major embellishment.