Dubbyuh's historical revisionism...

[Bullypulpit]

In a speech at Fort Hood on 3/12, Dubbyuh's penchant for the historical revisionism, which he once scolded others for, once more reared its head.

<blockquote> From the beginning, our goal in Iraq has been to promote Iraqi independence... - <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050412.html>GWB, 3/12/05</a></blockquote>

Now as we were told, prior to an earlier bit of historical revisionism, the sole purpose for invading Iraq was to strip Iraq of its WMD's and deprive Saddam Hussein of the capability to produce weapons of WMD's neither of which, as history hs since shown us, were present in Iraq.

Even more puzzling was this:

<blockquote>The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty. - <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050412.html>GWB, 3/12/05</a></blockquote>

Now, I don't know if anyone actually saw the video of the event, but it was the US Marines that pulled the statue down while a crowd of Iraqi citizens stood by. The only thing this event will go down as is just another in a long line of blatantly staged photo-ops designed to serve the Administration.

 

[Avatar4321]

Im puzzled why Bully is so confused over the President being honest. I guess libs can't figure out honest people.

 

[musicman]

Im puzzled why Bully is so confused over the President being honest. I guess libs can't figure out honest people.

That's a fact. They STILL don't understand America's love of Ronald Reagan. The idea that a politician could open his mouth and speak the simple truth of his heart is so alien to the liberal ideal as to defy comprehension. Any non-liberal who experiences success is simply doing a better sales job on us. At the core of this mindset is liberalism's contempt for America and Americans.

 

[Comrade]

In a speech at Fort Hood on 3/12, Dubbyuh's penchant for the historical revisionism, which he once scolded others for, once more reared its head.

<blockquote> From the beginning, our goal in Iraq has been to promote Iraqi independence... - <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050412.html>GWB, 3/12/05</a></blockquote>

Now as we were told, prior to an earlier bit of historical revisionism, the sole purpose for invading Iraq was to strip Iraq of its WMD's and deprive Saddam Hussein of the capability to produce weapons of WMD's neither of which, as history hs since shown us, were present in Iraq.

What you were told from (insert leftist site here) and what Bush actually said during his State of the Union address with resprect to pre-invasion Iraq are actually two very different things. Shame you didn't take a few moments to reference the actual text of the speech to recognize the humanitarian and democratic concerns which were also spelled out clearly and equally among other concerns in that particular address to the nation.

Even more puzzling was this:

<blockquote>The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty. - <a

Absolutely agree.

What, are we supposed to feel that somehow the first time introduction of real Democracy in a middle eastern state is an insignificant thread in the unfolding of 21st century history?

href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050412.html>GWB, 3/12/05</a></blockquote>

Now, I don't know if anyone actually saw the video of the event, but it was the US Marines that pulled the statue down while a crowd of Iraqi citizens stood by.

Just because there was some kind of spontaneous uprising in the center of Baghdad by the few brave Iraqi individuals who dared come out in the open in the still undecided phase of liberation, and they were caught w/o sufficient equipment to topple the statue in full view and immenent or latent danger from their prior oppressive regime, you have to somehow warp this into some attempt by the U.S. military to contrive an uprising where you say none existed. And you know full well such true sentiment against Saddam existed in the majority.

I think it's dishonest of you to deny that.

The only thing this event will go down as is just another in a long line of blatantly staged photo-ops designed to serve the Administration.

No, what will go down in history, and what will be taught to the worlds' future children, at least in the vetted media of the West, will be the fact that the world changed for the common person in the Middle East, beginning with 9-11, and the liberation of Afganistan from the oppressive Taliban, and continued until Iraqi citizens were freed from the yoke of Saddam, and that this began a revolution among all Middle Eastern states to the benefit of its common citizenry.

 

[musicman]

Just because there was some kind of spontaneous uprising in the center of Baghdad by the few brave Iraqi individuals who dared come out in the open in the still undecided phase of liberation, and they were caught w/o sufficient equipment to topple the statue in full view and immenent or latent danger from their prior oppressive regime, you have to somehow warp this into some attempt by the U.S. military to contrive an uprising where you say none existed. And you know full well such true sentiment against Saddam existed in the majority.

I think it's dishonest of you to deny that.

Thank you.

Ask Bully anything - "How's the weather?" will do nicely. His instantaneous, reflexive reply will be, "Which answer hurts George Bush?" It does wonders for one's credibility.

 

[Annie]

In a speech at Fort Hood on 3/12, Dubbyuh's penchant for the historical revisionism, which he once scolded others for, once more reared its head.

<blockquote> From the beginning, our goal in Iraq has been to promote Iraqi independence... - <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050412.html>GWB, 3/12/05</a></blockquote>

Now as we were told, prior to an earlier bit of historical revisionism, the sole purpose for invading Iraq was to strip Iraq of its WMD's and deprive Saddam Hussein of the capability to produce weapons of WMD's neither of which, as history hs since shown us, were present in Iraq.

Even more puzzling was this:

<blockquote>The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty. - <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050412.html>GWB, 3/12/05</a></blockquote>

Now, I don't know if anyone actually saw the video of the event, but it was the US Marines that pulled the statue down while a crowd of Iraqi citizens stood by. The only thing this event will go down as is just another in a long line of blatantly staged photo-ops designed to serve the Administration.

Rubbish Bully! You know the drill, go ahead and check the links and dates.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcript/

Hmm. Must've missed the 2003 State of the Union address, where Bush said:


Different threats require different strategies. In Iran we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror.

We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom. . . .

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country.

And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. . . .

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.


Just, you know, correcting the record.

Oh then there's this:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people; they've suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.

and this:

MARGARET WARNER: Last night, Pres. Bush laid out his argument that a post-Saddam Iraq could become a flourishing democracy.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. (Applause) The nation of Iraq, with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people, is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom. (Applause)

MARGARET WARNER: The president further asserted that a democratic Iraq could transform the entire region in a similar way.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: There are hopeful signs of the desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the freedom gap, so their peoples can fully share in the progress of our times. From Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward political reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region. (Applause) It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world, or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim, is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life.

 

[Annie]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that got a bit riled up when the left tried to pull this, again. Seems the Professor wrote on it and got quite a few emails. Lots of links at site:

http://instapundit.com/archives/022502.php

MY EARLIER POST ON HISTORICAL REVISIONISM drew this response from columnist Sylvester Brown of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, whom I criticized in the earlier post. Brown, however, tries to play tag by suggesting that maybe I missed Bush's talk about WMDs.

No -- but unlike Brown, I never said that I couldn't recall Bush ever raising the issue. The difference is that to Bush critics, WMDs were all that mattered, while I favored the idea of turning the Middle East upside down and shaking, hard. Which we've done, and which, as even Brown grudgingly admits, seems to have done some good.

He concludes with several tired lefty tropes:

This is a country that 40 years ago restricted the right to vote, use public facilities or eat in restaurants to some of its citizens. It's a country with a long-standing record of supporting autocratic regimes and dictatorships and overthrowing democratically elected government officials around the world.

When did the United States become the chief exporter of democracy to the Arab world?

Sorry, bloggers. When it comes to regime change and nation-building, I can't follow the wisdom of Bush and his crew. I lean more toward the words of a real straight shooter, Mohandas Gandhi:

"The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within."

The difference is, the United States didn't give the Iraqis the spirit of democracy. As they demonstrated on January 30, it was already there. We just cleared the way -- something that would never have happened if Brown had gotten his druthers. And it seems to me that the gravamen of Brown's point is that the United States is so morally deficient that it could hardly be credited with doing good on purpose.

I'm glad he's wrong about that, too.

UPDATE: Hazen Dempster emails: "It is important to realize that a large part of Gandhi's success was due to the fact that he was opposing the British, who don't deal with political opponents by killing them. An Iraqi Gandhi wouldn't have lasted long under Saddam." Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Howard Greene adds:


If the Palestinians had followed Gandhi I think they would have had their state in 1970. The Israelis would have had a hard time opposing them while at the same time they would have proved they could live next door in peace. Yet in the context where the Gandhi approach would work, the left "Gandhi Admirers" were sympathetic to the terrorists inclined to lynch a Palestinian Gandhi (and I suspect did lynch or assassinate several).


Meanwhile, reader C.J. Burch emails: "Every time I grow tired of the Republicans a lefty opens his mouth, suddenly I'm not quite as tired."

Indeed, again. And reader Timothy Morris emails: "Harry Turtledove had an excellent short story, 'The Last Article,' about how Gandhi would have fared in a Nazi occupied India. It's a short story. Both in context and content."

Yes, I read that. Some of the Nazis feel slightly guilty about killing him and his followers.

MORE: A couple of readers think that I'm making too much of the democracy thing, since we only went into Iraq as part of the war on terror.

That's true of course -- but it's precisely the Bush doctrine's connection of democracy-promotion with anti-terrorism that the left's tedious obsession with WMDs is intended to deny -- because, of course, it's a connection that the left used to make, until it appeared that doing so might help a Republican.
And, finally, reader Michael Grant sends this quote from Martin Luther King:


If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi. But if you enemy has no conscience, like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.


Grant asks: "Now consider: MLK chose nonviolence to advance his cause. What does that say, then, about his beliefs about his opponent?"

I guess he had a higher opinion of America, and Americans, than does Mr. Brown.