Tag Iraq

It’s Not a Timeline, It’s a “Time Horizon”

George Bush has long been opposed to timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. So when prime minister Nouri al-Maliki started pointedly looking at the clock and asking whether American troops didn’t have a plane to catch, obviously Bush couldn’t just set a timetable for withdrawal. However,

President Bush and Iraq’s prime minister have agreed to set a “general time horizon” for bringing more U.S. troops home from the war, a dramatic shift from the administration’s once-ironclad unwillingness to talk about any kind of deadline or timetable.

Of course, the thing about a horizon is that no matter how long you walk toward it, it never gets any closer.

No Duh: Bush Lied About Iraq

The AP reports:

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

The article doesn’t say, but presumably the study was funded by the Center for Confirming the Obvious.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

This bit’s a bit surprising: I didn’t think Bush would be in first place, seeing as how he let others do most of the lying.

“The cumulative effect of these false statements _ amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts _ was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.

Okay, now can we impeach the bastards?

Everyone’s a Critic

The LA Times reports

Friday’s violence occurred as hundreds of thousands of worshipers across Iraq took part in Ashura rites commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of Muhammad who was killed by the army of the Caliph Yazid on the plains of Karbala. Hussein’s death in 680 made permanent the schism between Shiites and Sunnis over the succession after Muhammad.
[…]

During a reenactment of Hussein’s slaying in Basra, the crowd turned on the actor who was performing the part of his killer and beat the man so badly that he returned with an assault rifle to exact revenge. At least one onlooker was killed in the crossfire when soldiers tried to subdue the man and his relatives, security officials said.

Why am I not surprised that religious nuts can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction? This would be Pythonesque if it weren’t tragic.

(Via FSTDT)

Déjà entendu

From today’s news:

In an interview broadcast Friday, Bush said there could well be a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq, but it would be on the invitation of the Iraqi government.

Now, where have I heard that before? Oh, right. I think it was August 20, 1968:

Although on the night of the invasion, the Czechoslovak Presidium declared that Warsaw Pact troops had crossed the border without knowledge of the ÄŒSSR Government, the Soviet Press printed an unsigned request, allegedly by Czechoslovak party and state leaders, for “immediate assistance, including assistance with armed forces.”

Looks like the USSR won the Cold War after all.

I ♥ Mike Argento

…because he wrote:

Petraeus is apparently Greek for Westmoreland