Bush Administration Disasters Depicted as Triumphs

[hangloose]

A sober non-inflamatory assessment of Chuckles Foreign Policy towards Iraq and how the Dems went along for the ride.


http://www.fpif.org/papers/0410gopiraq.html

By Stephen Zunes
Stephen Zunes is professor of politics and chair of the peace & justice studies program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus project (online at www.fpif.org) and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).

Even putting aside the many important legal and moral questions about the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, it has been a disaster even on practical terms. Mainstream to conservative strategic analysts and retired generals--along with the majority of career professionals in the State Department, Defense Department, and CIA--recognize that the invasion and occupation has made America less secure rather than more secure.

Still, the Bush administration continues to defend its actions and public opinion polls still show that a majority of Americans trust George W. Bush more than John Kerry to defend America. This is in large part because, throughout this fall’s campaign, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been making demonstrably false and misleading claims about what motivated administration decisions as well as the results of their actions.

Ironically, a number of these claims have been supported in a series of resolutions backed by a majority of congressional Democrats--including Senators John Kerry and John Edwards--thereby giving the Bush campaign immunity from much of the scrutiny it deserves. In doing so, these congressional Democrats have significantly increased the chances of a Bush victory next Tuesday. President Bush rarely fails to note in his stump speeches that congressional Democrats, including Kerry and Edwards, also saw Saddam Hussein as a threat and voted to authorize force. Indeed, not only have the Democrats missed a number of crucial opportunities to expose the disingenuous nature of Bush administration policy, they have at times repeated the lies themselves.

Below is a sampling of the claims being made by President Bush and Vice President Cheney in recent weeks leading up to the election, followed by a critique:

<snip>

In conclusion, the only reason this election is even close is that the Bush administration has been successful at positioning its misleading interpretations of events before, during, and subsequent to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as fact, thereby avoiding the criticism Bush’s policies deserve. It is nothing short of scandalous that the Democrats--who should be coasting toward a decisive victory at this point--have made it so difficult for themselves by perpetuating the Bush administration’s misrepresentations.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Same shtik as Donald Trump. The guy's casinos go into bankruptcy

and he calls a press conference to proudly announce that he's made another "amazing" and "great" deal (meaning the buildings still have his name on them when everything's said and done). Screw his creditors, he's still Donald Trump.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. was is peace. black is white. failure is success.

[teryang]

3. Good post

Interesting analysis of disinformation and democratic complicity.