Archive for January 25th, 2008
Saddam and WMD
January 25th, 2008
After all these years of being told “Bush lied. People died.” over and over again we see a CBS 60 Minutes excerpt of an interview with Saddam’s handler while in custody.
The question has always been that if Saddam had no WMD why did he persist in allowing everyone to believe he did, even to the point of war?
Here’s some information on that:
Saddam still wouldn’t admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did. Because, says Piro, “For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq,” he tells Pelley.
He also intended and had the wherewithal to restart the weapons program. “Saddam] still had the engineers. The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there,” says Piro. “He wanted to pursue all of WMD…to reconstitute his entire WMD program.” This included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Piro says.
[Emphasis mine]
This, after he realized the United States wasn’t going to conduct four days of a bombing campaign and then leave as we did in the first Gulf War.
The people with the knowledge and ability to reconstitute WMD are still in Iraq according to Piro, who was the only outsider to see Saddam while he was in prison.
We heard the other day of the “non-partisan” report that Bush lied 935 times in order to get us into this war, but everyone in the intelligence communities around the world believed Saddam had WMD. The Senators on the Intelligence Committee, including Jay Rockefeller and John Edwards believed it. Madeline Albright believed it, as did both former President and Mrs. Bill Clinton.
In fact, Mrs. Clinton acted as though she had some inside knowledge confirming that Saddam had WMD and now tiptoes through the tulips of memory lane, denying she ever thought so in the first place.
I sometimes wonder if we are living in an Alice in Wonderland world where everyone has gone down the rabbit hole and now right is wrong and wrong is right.
Now we know for a fact that Saddam led us to believe he had WMD in order to keep the Iranians off his back. And we know it to be true because 60 Minutes tells us so.
Does this change anything in the way people think about our president? No, because they want to believe he deliberately lied to us. It has worked so well for the opposition they plan to keep up this facade and do “whatever is necessary” to win back the White House.
I’m not so sure the prize is worth the price if the wrong people win. They have managed to drag a good man through the mud with them for over seven years now and won’t be happy until or unless they leave him a completely broken man. Lotsa luck on that one.
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A Must See Marine Corps Recruiting Ad
January 25th, 2008
Shame on any city in this country who would not allow our Military to film a recruiting ad in their midst.
Via Gateway Pundit:
Here is the latest US Marine recruiting ad.
San Francisco officials refused to allow the US Marines to film in their city for this ad.
What a stunning tour of our beautiful country incorporated with those who protect her.
More here.
Friday Fly-By
January 25th, 2008
“Men of Valor: Part VI of VII” has been posted at Michael Yon’s site. If you have been following this series don’t miss this latest dispatch.
From the cities to the deserts, the malarial jungles to stiff-frozen lakes, from counterinsurgencies to head-on battles in cragged mountains, it takes years to make a good infantry soldier. Just down the road was urban combat. Here were scorpions, relentless sun and heat, and mines scattered like seeds in the sand. In the city there was no need to hide our tracks, whereas out here where noise could drift for miles in the desert night, track discipline could be life and death.
This wins the “what?” award for the week:
A British parking warden ticketed a car which had pulled up to a hospital with a patient in a diabetic coma, and proceeded to continue writing the ticket even as emergency personnel frantically attended to the victim.
From Deans World comes what I consider my favorite quote of the week.
“Freedom isn’t just a pretty word or a fun way to be, or even just the most moral state of affairs. It’s also the best way to make life better for people.”
Simply stated but speaks volumes.
If you would like to read a very thought provoking article, this might be a good choice:
This is a striking story: today, it frequently seems as if scientific authority is replacing religious and moral authority, and in the process being transformed into a dogma. At first sight, it appears that science has the last word on all the important questions of our time. Science is no longer confined to the laboratory. Parents are advised to adopt this or that child-rearing technique on the grounds that ‘the research’ has shown what is best for kids. Scientific studies are frequently used to instruct people on how to conduct their relationships and family life, and on what food they should eat, how much alcohol they should drink, how frequently they can expose their skin to the sun, and even how they should have sex. Virtually every aspect of human life is discussed in scientific terms, and justified with reference to a piece of research or by appealing to the judgment of experts.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A record number of readers visited U.S. online newspaper sites last year, according to figures released on Thursday, confirming the Web as one of the few bright spots for the struggling newspaper industry.
The Newspaper Association of America reported the number of unique visitors to newspaper Web sites last year rose more than 6 percent to a monthly average of 60 million. Monthly visits climbed 9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year ago.
It said that during the fourth quarter, 39 percent of all active Web users visited newspaper Web sites, with visits averaging 44 minutes a month.
Here’s to a great Friday for all and a terrific weekend as well.
