"Hello," she lied's Open Salon Blog

Iraq Before and After (repost)

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:08:45 -0400

SHOCK & AWE, BEFORE:

We know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. Dick Cheney, Meet the Press 3/16/2003¨

AFTER:

You may be reading too much. I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. Donald Rumsfeld, press briefing 6/24/2003

BEFORE:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. Dick Cheney, speech to VFW National Convention 8/26/2002

The president of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true. Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary, response to question from reporter 12/4/2002

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world. Ari Fleischer, press briefing 12/2/2002

AFTER:

I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are. Ari Fleischer, press briefing 7/9/2003

BEFORE:

We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. George W. Bush, speech in Ohio 10/7/2002

We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. George W. Bush, speech in Ohio 10/7/2002

AFTER:

DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still --

PRESIDENT: So what's the difference?

George W. Bush, ABC interview 12/16/2003

BEFORE:¨

It {Iraq} actively maintains all key aspects of its offensive BW [biological weapons] program. John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, speech to the Hudson Institute 11/1/2002

AFTER:

A British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq, told The Observer last week: "They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons." Unnamed British Weapons Inspector, The Observer 6/15/2003

BEFORE:

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. Colin Powell, address to U.N. Security Council 2/5/2003

AFTER:

The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Colin Powell, Associated Press interview 6/12/2003

BEFORE:

I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction. Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board, Washington Post 3/23/2003

We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview 3/30/2003

AFTER:

We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country. Donald Rumsfeld, Fox News interview 5/4/2003

No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored. Condoleeza Rice, Meet the Press 6/8/2003

BEFORE:

But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found. Ari Fleischer, press briefing 4/10/2003

AFTER:

I'm not sure that's the major reason we went to war. Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, NBC Today Show 6/26/2003

For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on. Paul Wolfowitz, Vanity Fair interview 5/28/2003

BEFORE:

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. General Tommy Franks, press conference 3/22/2003

AFTER:

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ambassador, New York Times editorial 7/6/2003

SIMULTANEOUSLY:

But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them. George W. Bush, interview with TVP Poland 5/30/2003

We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there. Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, press interview 5/30/2003

BUT AT LEAST:

One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction. George W. Bush, speech at an Ohio weapons factory 5/25/2003

~ ~ ~

Vigil

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:11:17 -0500

Your hand grows cold in mine.

Cupped in your palm,

I find a girl.

JLP 1926 - 2009

Death and magic and Aqua Net.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:10:56 -0400

She died last evening, an easy death after a stunningly awful few days.

A week ago, my mom was laughing and as alive as anyone I have known. I spent last Tuesday with her and she hoovered up a fudge brownie from her favorite bakery, Back In The Day. Like all things chocolate, it vanished into her tiny body without adding a crumb of fat.

My mom was the desserts-equivalent of a black hole in space.

She weighed eighty pounds, and maybe five of that was Aqua Net hair spray.

She was fragile as paper. She was tough as stones.

Let the ideas that brought her comfort all be true: let her be in the arms of my dad now, and reunited with her parents and the big sister who was her fiercest friend. Let magic be real - it must be real, we need it so much - and let me believe it as she did.

Is faith a choice, or is it a gift? I don't know.

I don't know.

Jon and Kate Plus Eight Runaway Tinfoil Kayaks

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:10:46 -0400

Class IV rapids. Family hobby gone tragically awry. Tearful parents set aside their differences and share an agonizing vigil at Cataract Canyon.

CNN employs a "virtual river" wall map and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. MSNBC's split screen contrasts the real-time crisis with flashbacks to happier times in the Jon and Kate marriage. On HLN, a whitewater guide warns of dire odds against the children's survival if they enter the class V Gore Rapid. "The Gore is likely unrunnable in a tinfoil craft. I wouldn't attempt it."

Jon mans up. Kate is stoic, but her hair looks like a rat's nest. We've never seen her this vulnerable

Reynolds Aluminum assembles a team of foil-construction consultants. Alcoa pledges to cover the cost of a worst-case wilderness recovery operation.

Skeptics flood the blogosphere with snark.

I am riveted to my TV set for two hours, praying to the agnostics' God and sobbing like a child.

Hope is a glimpse of silver foil bobbing in the foam. Discarded Kit-Kat wrapper? Or one of the sextuplets?

For a cynic, I'm kind of gullible.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta demonstrates hypothermia.

There is a bomb, or Gadhafi has invited us to brunch

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:09:29 -0400

I'm watching Muammar Gadhafi's speech to the United Nations and it's impossible to know whether he wants everyone to duck and cover, or participate in a group hug. The simultaneous translation is being performed by Latka Gravas, who keeps correcting himself on key points: ("You should accept...um, you should reject...accept...for the mankind.")

The gist of the speech, so far:

• Jet lag! Or possibly the threat of an attack on the UN building by Al Queda

• Release Noriega

• Giving the finger to Security Council

• Vietnam War (or Studio 54?) represented the pinnacle of disco

• You are all asleep

• When it's four a.m. in New York, it's eleven o'clock in Libya

• After Tito died, Hitler rebuilt this entire country brick by brick and it was dismembered for imperialism

• Against flu epidemic and rape

• A Taliban state would either be just like, or nothing like, the Vatican

• Thanking American people for accommodations

• Darfur; irrigation. You are the ones who want, who made, this problem for a sacrifice

* Lamumba... lambada?... Kennedy and Jack Ruby

• Ask yourselves: why was Oswald shot by an Israelite? And WTF was Tom Delay doing on Dancing With The Stars?

• Let's do this again in India or China

Also, Obama is like a son to him. (Yes, Fox News, there is a Santa Claus.)