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September 13, 2002
There's a Republican in the woodpile
Two California congressmen, Democrat Loretta Sanchez [who's awfully cute for a damned congressman] and Republican David Dreier appeared On the Record with Greta van Susteren to discuss the Iraq situation.
As per expectations, Congressman Dreier was hawking a hawkish view. Besides general ideas about maybe probably having WMD, the congressman tried to tie Saddam Hussein somehow sort of directly to 9-11. Most damningly, some Al Qaeda members have been given refuge in Iraq, he said.
Now that's bad. Direct ties of Saddam Hussein supporting Al Qaeda would constitute about the most straightforward case you could possibly take to the American people for attacking Iraq.
Except that as Congressman Sanchez pointed out nicely, the good congressman was somewhat materially misrepresenting the facts. There hasn't been any smoking gun to tie Iraq to 9-11, as Mr. Dreier implied. There wouldn't be much objection anywhere to the pending attack if there was such evidence. Congressman Dreier could cast about that Saddam kept company with that type of people, but has little or no evidence to present of direct association with Al Qaeda.
Far worse, specifically, were the good Republican's implications about Al Qaeda being harbored in Iraq. Ms. Sanchez pointed out that the Al Qaeda were given refuge in the northern part of Iraq- which Saddam doesn't much control [ie no fly zone] by the Kurds, his worst domestic enemies. Congressman Dreier's response? "Yeah, well it was still in Iraq."
In other words, Congressman Dreier admitted to, by any other word, directly lying- purposely stating the opposite representation from what he knows to be real truth. The bad guys in this case are the Kurds. These are prime among people inside the country the US government apparently intends to go to for help in overthrowing Saddam and setting up a new government. The Al Qaeda connection should be something that would obviously cast at least a bit of doubt on our big allies. Are we going to war in order to put Al Qaeda sympathizers in power? Instead Congressman Dreier puts it on the opposite person from the perpetrator, offering to punish the guy they're fighting against.
There's a lying Republican in the woodpile here, and this should make us slightly more skeptical of the case for war. I'm inclined to support attacking Iraq, but this makes me just a little less inclined to support this action. Just this type of misrepresentation casts doubt now on anything else Congressman Dreier says about this war effort- and anything else, for that matter. This gives his credibility a big blow with me.
Are other things that he says in support of the war effort equally credible? Do I want to endorse military action being controlled by someone who works like that? When you ask us to support and pay for bunches of people getting killed in a war on both sides, it is extremely important that we be able to trust that you are telling us the truth about just what we're doing and exactly why we're doing it.
Rand knows I hate taking the side of a Democrat, but Ms. Sanchez seemed pretty reasonable in her moderate skepticism of the war effort, looking for as many facts as possible.
Mostly though, she won by default. That is, you have to at least give her that she made her arguments fair and square, and did not obviously and blatantly lie to make her points.
Post Script: I may have somewhat oversimplified this matter by not properly taking into account the internal factions among Kurds. Lynxx Pherett says that I should Assume the Position while making some explanation of the intricate intra-tribal rivalries.
The main relevant point here is that the Kurds said to have been harboring Al Qaeda were not ones that we are dealing with. That's good. Glad to hear that. That's still not Hussein, though.
Nonetheless, the main point of this was that Congressman Dreier was purposely misrepresenting (the less diplomatic word would be "lying.") His "It's still in Iraq" reply to Ms. Sanchez says that he knew the difference, but didn't care.
We're probably going to have to take Hussein out, certainly at the risk of serious American casualties from exactly the WMDs that everyone's talking about. This may be necessary, but this makes truthfulness from our leaders absolutely critical. This isn't fudging some budget numbers; this is life and death. This is also a good reason for being glad we've got a President Bush (fairly honest, as politicians go) rather than Bill Clinton or *$#&^ Al Gore.
posted by Al at 9/13/2002 11:16:00 PM
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