What is it with Republican leaders getting confused about basics in the Middle East lately? John McCain got confused (on four separate occasions) about Sunni and Shia, Iran and al Qaeda. Not to be outdone, Bush flubbed one of his own on Iran and nuclear weapons.
President Bush contended that Iran has “declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people” and that the Islamic Republic could be hiding a secret program.
Iran, however, has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it’s operating in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions is for civilian power plants, not warheads.
Asked about the president’s comment, Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said Bush had “shorthanded” Iran’s desire “to wipe Israel off the map,” its refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands to suspend its enrichment work and Iran’s continued development of ballistic missiles.
Ah, yes, “shorthanded.” The White House uses this euphemism once in a great while to explain that while what the president said is clearly false, the inaccurate comments help summarize his broader point, thus making his mistake less of a mistake. Right.
But like McCain’s explanation for his confusion, the White House’s reasoning for Bush’s errors of fact and judgment doesn’t exactly add up.
Indeed, Bush and McCain have the same problem. When McCain falsely insisted that Iran is responsible for training al Qaeda terrorists and sending them into Iraq, he said he “misspoke.” The rationale looked foolish when examples emerged of McCain saying the exact same thing more than once.
Similarly, the president falsely argued that Iran has “declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people” and that the Islamic Republic could be hiding a secret program. Even Bush aides acknowledge that this is unsupported by the facts, but before they argue that he “misspoke,” remember that he made the same bogus claim in August. It’s likely, then, that the president, like the Republican who hopes to succeed him, just believes things that aren’t true.
Dan Froomkin hammered this home quite nicely.
President Bush on Wednesday said something demonstrably false and inflammatory about Iran — asserting that the Iranian government has “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people.”
The Iranians have never done any such thing — and for Bush to say so at a time of great tension between the two countries is bizarre at best.
So why did he say it? Was he actively trying to misrepresent the situation? Was it just a slip of the tongue? Or does he believe it, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary?
It seems unlikely that Bush would choose this particular venue to launch a disinformation campaign: His comment came midway through a softball interview with an obscure U.S.-funded Farsi-language radio station, on the occasion of Persian new year. And the Iranian audience knows best that what he said is untrue. Such a blatant distortion only strengthens the Iranian government’s position that Bush is a liar.
So did Bush just misspeak? The White House certainly suggested that yesterday, with a spokesman insisting that Bush had simply spoken in “shorthand,” combining Iranian threats against Israel with concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.
And yet, as disturbing as the third possibility is — that Bush is operating in an alternate reality — it’s supported by this simple fact: He’s said almost exactly the same thing at least once before.
It’s a reminder that having a clueless president is not without consequences. For that matter, it’s also a reminder of why McCain represents four more years of the status quo.
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4000 Killed
Will Bush tap dance on the White House steps today?
Nice to see Bush doesn’t care about the Americans he killed for his family
vendetta against Saddam.
when will we learn, the president doesn’t answer to us?
foist?
Bush is a true Patriot — Not!
gratuitous self-referential post:
http://tofubo.blogspot.com/200.....n-and.html
from comment:
http://www.iranaffairs.com/ira.....m_the.html
4000 dead.
Cheney responds to a question about the war being opposed by a large majority of the people he swore to serve with one word:
“So?”
4000 dead.
“So?”
Once more for emphasis:
4000 dead.
“So?”
-dick cheney
Unfortunately, our Congress looks at that and says, “gosh, maybe he has a point.”
The future does not look bright.
I’m sorry but I don’t see anything wrong with the statement. I bet Iran would love to nuke Israel. Having said that, I don’t believe anything our government says when they discuss intelligence. After WMD and tubes we know our government will do and say anything. The world knows this.
FOX is State Sponsored TV @ 6:
What is wrong with the statement is that it is FALSE. Iran never said that they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people. If Bush had wanted to say “Iran has declared it wanted to wipe israel off the map”, then he should have said that, because it is TRUE. What he said shows the world that our president, and therefore, America, is a liar.
4000 American soldiers died for a LIE and a pack of CRIMINAL LIARS. A historic waste.
It goes back to something most of us learn at a young age. When you tell a lie, it breeds more lies. Eventually you tell so many you can’t keep track, and worse sometimes start to believe them to be truths.
When it was said, “wipe Israel off the map” meant to give the land back to its rightful owners. Not to bomb them or kill them all off.
All this BS about Iran supporting Al-Qaeda is not just to support attacks on Iran, it’s also to camouflage the real support for Al-Qaeda and the reality of what’s happening in Iraq.
The SAUDIS are supporting Al-Qaeda - that’s already been substantiated.
And the US is fighting against Al-Qaeda.
So the Bush-Cheney Gang, in league with their “friends” the SAUDIS, are playing both sides against each other.
Classic Bush Crime Family behavior.
For instance Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush Sr did this during the Iran-Iraq War, directly aiding Iraq, and funneling aid to Iran by way of Israel during the Iran-Contra Project.
When asked about the US role in prolonging the Iran-Iraq War, Kissinger famously remarked, “The more of them that kill each other the better.”
Same strategy. Only the dates & the names of a few key players have changed.
There’s ample reason - and evidence - to believe that World War Two and the Cold War were similarly contrived.
Without the aid of the American Fascists (Lindbergh, Ford, Prescott Bush) Hitler would never have risen to power; World War Two would never have happened. And who benefitted? The American Fascists - witness the subsequent growth of the American Military Industrial Complex.
F’ing Arms Merchants.
Were’s Saladin when you need him?
Lost in Translation
Zionism (as an ideology) needs to go.
Faux News
He wants to nuke Israel
They’re all getting confused because the hypnosis isn’t working?
Mornin’ Sunshines!
How was everyones Zombie Jebus day?
Anyhoo…as they days go by, and we get closer to Nov.
I am becoming more and more skeptical that we even gonna have an election…there are far too many crimes committed by this regime for them to just walk away and let someone else (possibly a democrat) and risk being indicted.
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
And yes, I’m feeling rather cynical and pessimistic this mornin.
The statement was a lie, the President knew he was lying and he intended to make the statement. There is no slip of the forked tongue. You notice there wasn’t any back tracking, or apologies made. All they did was show justification for Chimpy’s statement.
I will be VERY surprised if we don’t see at least a bombing of Iranian targets before the election.
FOX is State Sponsored TV @ 6:
Because Bush told yet another lie.
And why would Iran nuke Israel? Why would Iran bring upon themselves the destruction of an Israeli or American nuclear counterattack?
For what it’s worth…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.....ranslation
W doesn’t know his left from his right how can he be expected to know anything about foreign nations. He never claimed to be Delbert Einstein. 4000 Dead Americans I’m sure Cheny’s reply will be the same , SO . We have had this nation run down not run by these two cowards for almost 8 horrific years I can’t wait for these chickens to come home to roost . What a legacy , the only good thing is the total implosion of the republican party it will be over for them soon but not soon enough .
liberalHUSEEINmoderation @ 15:
Had to remove the pistol from my mouth to say I’m feeling the same way which makes it a good day because its a step up from complete despair.
JustSickOfIt @ 16:
No they’ll attack us first. At least thats what we’ll be told.
Iraq all over again. (at least in their heads)
The last thing we need is a strike based on false assumptions against Iran.
Concerning the “wipe Israel of the Map”
From www.juancole.com:
“When Bush’s spokesman was pressed for a clarification of Bush’s lies, he responded with more lies, saying Bush was referring to a combination of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to ‘wipe Israel off the face of the map.’ But the nuclear ambitions are civilian as far as anyone can prove, and Ahmadinejad never threatened any such thing.
William Branigan (with Robin Wright) of the The Washington Post notes:
” In an October 2005 speech to a conference on a “World without Zionism,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by a state-run Iranian news agency as agreeing with a statement by Iran’s late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that “Israel must be wiped off the map.” Iran’s foreign minister later said the comment had been incorrectly translated from Farsi and that Ahmadinejad was “talking about the [Israeli] regime,” which Iran does not recognize and wants to see collapse.
According to Farsi-speaking commentators including Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan, Ahmadinejad’s exact quote was, “The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” Cole has written that Ahmadinejad was not calling for the “Nazi-style extermination of a people,” but was expressing the wish that the Israeli government would disappear just as the shah of Iran’s regime had collapsed in 1979.
In December, a U.S. intelligence review concluded that Iran stopped work on a suspected nuclear weapons program four years earlier, reversing a previous assessment that Iran was determined to acquire nuclear arms.”
Branigan deserves some sort of medal for fearless truth-telling.”
MountainMan23 @ 11:
Goddamn! War profiteers, to me are the LOWEST life form on the planet…they should all be drawn and quartered…after a fair trial of coure.
Actually, the United States wants nuclear weapons so they can kill every man, woman, child, puppy, and kitten on the planet. I just shorthanded that one…why else have so many nukes?
Bush. Seven plus years and he hasn’t learned anything while in office. The man is obviously not educable. I blame all this on Yale. If they’d just flunked the idiot for what was undoubtedly work that would in all probability embarrass a sixth grader, then we might have been spared what this murderous fool has wrought.
And now we have Mr. 894/899 (McCain’s stellar class rank at Annapolis) to look forward to as our next president. The “good old boy network” has disastrous global consequences. It’s one thing to let guys with below average intelligence and elite daddies into competitive schools (Yale and the USNA), and quite another to provide warmongering morons with super affirmative action boosts on their way toward trashing the planet.
The U.S. destroyed Iran’s efforts to form a Democracy in the 1950’s. What a scam and then Israel lays claims to being the only Democracy in the middle east while oppressing the Palestinian people. Absurd.
Go check out what Senator Lindsey Graham had to say about Iran this past Sunday on Face the Nation ” We need to let the Iranians know that you are not going to be the “cancer of the middle east without consequences”. You are not going to destroy Israel by supporting Hamas. You are not going to destroy Lebanon (Israel will take care of destroying Lebanon) by supporting Hezbollah. You are not going to destroy our will in Iraq. And you do this at your own peril”
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/ftn/main3460.shtml
oh really @ 24:
Don’t let it get out that McCain achieved so low. He’ll be a shoe-in with a good number of voters.
Dale @ 10:
I was going to say something like that. It was a deliberate mistranslation on the part of the US press. Even the pro-Israeli group MEMRI pointed this out.
EliteLemming @ 20:
Alot of folks are feelin that way…don’t give up hope though!
Kathleen @ 25:
I wouldn’t have a problem with Israel being described as the only democracy in the Middle East if it were truly the case, however. If Israel defined itself as a true democracy for Jews, that would be spot on. But, to say that Israel is a democracy for all its citizens is an outright lie. A Russian-born Jewish immigrant to Israel has more rights than the native born non-Jewish citizens.
Dale @ 10:
Agreed. This is another example of the successful, and misleading (at best), framing of an issue.
The pattern is strongly indicative of the fact that THESE ARE NOT MISTAKES!
They are repeating the meme to drill it into minds of the fearful BASE!
CoIntelPro against the WAR of LIES @ 31:
You are correct sir!
Bush doesn’t use shorthand and McCain is not confused - both of them and all of their colleagues in this government are merely and unequivocally LIARS!
He went to war in 2003 over WMD, he’s going to do it again in 2008 over WMD. Back then Saddam was a menace to the “civilized world”, this time around Iran is a menace to the “peaceful world”.
Yeah, I got the memo.
I’d hate to shoot holes in Bush, Repubs, and Dems logic, but have they ever really thought about the crap they say? We’ve been told Iran supports the Palestinians, and is in bed with Palestinian terrists. Then we’re told that Iran wants nukes, to nuke Israel off the map. Now, if Iran had nukes and nuked Israel off the map, would that not kill Palestinians, whom they say they support? Kind of faulty logic. Not everyone walks around the globe with a giant club to swat mosquitoes.
Iran has WMDs. Iran supports Al Qaeda. Iraq has WMDs. Iraq supports Al Qaeda.
I see a pattern..
ConcernedCanuck @ 35:
HEY! What’re ya doin, bringin logic up this early in the mornin?
How ya doin CC?
galmud @ 36:
IRAQ has WMD’s? Okay parrot.
Thanks StevePam for that link to the misquote. Amazing how many people still fall for that.
But thats their trick: State the lie - it will get coverage. IF the lie gets caught, state the retractions - it will NOT get coverage.
Eventually everyone else will state the lie as fact. McCain is doing it. cheney is doing it. bush is doing it. Clinton is doing it.
What we have to do is ALWAYS call out the lie, and NEVER NEVER say its due to incompetence. Its the appearance of incompetence that gives them the time and space to do it again and again.
So Please Please C&L and any other blogger that may read this, None of this is incompetence, its all part of the plan. Calling it incompetence allows this to continue.
The reason Dems can kiss another 4 years of Presidency away:
http://www.boston.com/bostongl.....l_opinion/
Nice Cartoon.
war all the time = bigger returns for war profiteers like Dick Cheney.
“so?”
Israel is the only nuclear power in the Mideast.
they also are practicing genocide as far as the Palestinians are concerned.
“so?”
Saudi Arabia is without a doubt backing Al Quaeda.
“so?”
how much more fucking stupid can the American public get??
we’re going to get exactly as we deserve, and nothing more nothing less.
stick a fork in our asses and turn us over ‘cuz we’re all done.
galmud @ 17:
Exactly! This is more strategic-oil-purposes. Turkey is going to be more and more powerful; they will control the water - the rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates upstream - the water - (I imagine the Americans want to keep them happy). Israel too, controls water and water is the biggie that allows the empire to take control of the entire region and the oil and the gas, etc. Further, they would control the buffer between Asia and Europe. The control of water compromises Syria and I suspect that they’re far more pissed at what’s happening with the dams and water installations than we’re going to see - until the situation explodes.
They are sociopaths, amongst many other things.