 | Steve Young | |
If Lying About War's Reality is Impeachable, Start the Proceedings
I had always thought that George W. Bush was either a liar or he had the worst judgement in Presidential history. Now, it's pretty clear it wasn't the bad judgement.
What blares loud and clear from the Iraq Study Group's report, even more than the complete and utter failure that is the Bush war presidency, is the evidence that the American public has been duped.
One of the infamous debate tactics of the broadcast Right Wing Lords of Loud is loud righteous indignation,.Indignation interrupting anyone depicting President Bush as a liar."Name one lie," O'Reilly will counter.
Well, now the ISG has named one. And it's so egregious a lie that its retroactive domino effect knocks over - hell it smashes to smithereens - every other domino of so-called truth on the table. Most deplorable, Bush's incredulous estimate of 30-50,000 civilian fatalities in Iraq.
The ISG reports a systematic under-reporting of attacks. In fact, attacks involving no US personnel were completely ignored.
"There is significant under-reporting of the violence in Iraq," said the report.
In one summer day, of the 1100 "acts of violence," 93 were reported.
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," wrote the ISG.
Incredible. Actual violence was ten times what the DOD reported.
How far do we have to project that multiple to cripple any legitimacy in Bush's civilian death estimate? Seems the true death toll is closer to the 655,000 estimate that came from a Johns Hopkins University study than anything Bush's Defense Department has admitted.
Now, how difficult is it to conclude they also lied in trumping up the pre-war intelligence?
Sure, the Bush Administration (most likely) doesn't lie about everything, but you can't cherry-pick the truths to prove they are honest. Lie once, you're a liar.
If this administration has been deceiving the American public over what has been taking place in the war, can we believe them when they say they do not torture? Can we believe them about anything?
Impeachable? Sending the country into a war based on lies still must be investigated to nail down any culpability. Keeping this country in a deadly war based on lies? Friend of the family, Jim Baker, just confirmed it: this President is guilty.
Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful."
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