Stunning was the first word that came to my mind, too.
I find it terribly sad that there will be some who see this clip and still not get it. And some of those will be in the MSM.
Sadder still are those in seats of power who do get it, and for their own reasons, don’t care and vote as dictated by some other agenda.
I would like to have a way to verify the date of this ABC News clip on al Qaeda/Osama because I want to post it a couple of places. Libs won’t believe it didn’t occur on Bush’s watch I’m afraid. Is there any way to find that?
It’s telling that video so crucial to the debate of our times has to be dug up by bloggers. If the MSM had ANY integrity, this clip would’ve been played constantly from 9/12/01 to the present.
I saw and linked a shorter version of this a couple of years ago that was at the MRC site, but I think it disappeared. I’ll be posting this clip, but it would help if we knew what it was from - it appears to be a clip from a longer feature - and when it ran, since it was clearly from before Dubya took office and screwed up the world. (According to the liberals viewpoint, that is.)
What’s shocking about this clip is that a major news outlet ran a feature that directly connected Osama and Saddam, but nowadays, that same outlet probably phases things as “Administration claims of a connection” in order to support the current meme that Bushiburton lied us to war. It’s the same thing as with Scooter Libby - the media all knew that Libby wasn’t the leak and that Wilson was a liar, yet reported the witch hunt as if there were questions that they didn’t already know the answers to.
What I find especially aggrivating is that last night when ABC News opened with the Pentagon Inspector General’s report both their reporter and anchor ended up shaking their heads that Douglas Feith showed no contrition over his “error”.
We’ve gotten to a point where reality no longer suffices as a basis on which to form policy - at least for some (too many).
I cheer myself with the very special irony of the anti-war left using a U.S. Army General to cast aspersions on Doug Feith’s character - erroneously, as it turns out. The other ironic elements in this spinoff of “Walter’s Whopper” are equally entertaining.
I couldn’t get the clip to play all the way through. However, we’ve had this clip available at Attack Machine in our Big Lie section for a year or two.
We also have:
Video of Sen. Hillary Clinton claiming Saddam “has chemical/bio weapons stocks, missile capability, a nuclear program and harbors terrorists including al Qaeda members.”
Video of Senator Jay Rockefeller: “unassailable evidence of Saddam’s nukes and we can no longer wait around for a smoking gun.”
Video of Senator Ted Kennedy: “we have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”
Not much meat on those bones, which isn’t surprising for ABC. What is surprising is the depth to which neo-cons will go to convince themselves they were right all along and that they do not share responsibility in the intelligence failure that has weakened America. Now using ABC to make their point; now that is irony.
For those that care, Frontline did a real insightful piece. If ever you watch it, return here and we can add Bill Buckley to the list of liberals (right behind George Will, Zinni, Powell, O’neil, and Scowcroft) who dissent (putting it lightly) from your neo-con apologist view of how we ended up making war in Iraq.
Not much meat on those bones, which isn’t surprising for ABC.
For those that care, Frontline did a real insightful piece. If ever you watch it, return here and we can add Bill Buckley to the list of liberals (right behind George Will, Zinni, Powell, O’neil, and Scowcroft) who dissent (putting it lightly) from your neo-con apologist view of how we ended up making war in Iraq.
PBS? Not many bones in that pile of rotting meat.
Buckley and Will’s position are well known, if not many agree. Powell, O;neil and Scowcroft are universally ignored, not even pretending toward conservative ideals.
The U.S. military is in harm’s way and the ivory tower crowd seeks their defeat. Oh, the idea travels in many guises, and there are scholarly dissertations galore. They add up to one thing, a plan to defeat America and her military just so you can put a finger in W’s eye. Never mind the consequences to the military or to the country, hating Bush is the goal.
OK, let’s say they made a mistake. Saddam was really a peace-loving guy, and his regime was not populated with homicidal maniacs. The Iraqi people were hapy and prosperous and at peace with their neighbors. The U.s. attacked without provocation and should not have done it. Further, let’s say I agree with all that.
So the heck what?!? The soldiers are committed - rightly or wrongly. I support their mission and them and wish them every success. Once the fight is OVER, then we can sort things out. But, to turn-tail and run away? That’s not very democratic. Unfortunately, it is Democratic.
If we’re going to quote PBS’s “Frontline”, let’s be fair about it. Here’s another show they did showing how foreign (in other words, non-Iraqi) terrorists were trained in the art of hijacking airliners at the Iraqi Base known as Salman Pak.
“What kind of training went on, and who was being trained?
Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism.
The people being trained were Iraqis in one group, and non-Iraqis, or foreign nationals, in another?
Non-Iraqis were trained separately from us. There were strict orders not to meet with them and not to talk to them. And even when they conduct their training, their training has to occur at times different from the times when we conduct the Iraqis our own training.”
"It doesn’t really matter what Bill Clinton thought, because George Bush came into office with the purpose of repudiating Clinton and all his works.”
Really? I don’t recall Bush campaigning on such a platform. Can you give us some examples of his saying such a thing?
By the way, has anyone ever heard of the Federal Indictment that Bill Clinton’s Justice Department handed down against bin Laden? In section #4 of the “background” introduction, it specifically claims that al Qaeda and Iraq had a working relationship. You can find the eintire text of this at the pro-Bush Federation of American Scientists website…
And how about that widely reported (sarc/) 2003 court case in Manhattan where a Federal Judge (appointed by Clinton) said that a jury would find that Iraq was at least partly responsible for 9/11?
You are missing the point. The Democrats and their water carriers in the media have been insisting that Bush invented a connection between Saddam and Osama.
ABC’s report, broadcast when Bush was still a governor, belies that bit of revisionism. There is no irony in citing ABC in 1999 to demonstrate the hypocrisy of ABC today.
Attack Machine,
I get the point and it is entertaining; however, it originally came up in the context of the Pentagon Inspector General report. I’ve read the report and it is correctly damning of the means and methods used to analyze intelligence leading up to the war. This intel failure was consistent with our previous intel failures. For those of us who have made it a professional career we know that the neo-cons are front and center on the intel failure (along with CIA who wanted to please their boss).
Tom,
You may be correct that this is not the time and that Levin et al. should wait. To that end, this is my last post.
I am hardly like the left who wants us to loose to prove theri point. Your Saddam argument is silly. He was aweful and rots in hell. Now, in “hindsight” whether it was in America’s interest to use military power to impose regime change seems to have been a mistake.
Hindsight is a waste except to learn from our errors - which is the purpose of my posts.
As for the present, I support the President and only wish we’d double down to 300k. Maybe then a few chicken-hawks would have the courage and fortitude to join the fight. I’ve been once and am very likely going in the summer. Of course, not all share may view; heck the troops don’t think about this crap.. They are patriots and heroes far more than you or I could ever hope to be.
You don’t have a monopoly on conservative ideals and I’ll take Scowcroft and Powell and GHWB over the neo-cons anyday (hell I’ll even take Giuliani and Swartznegger).
P
