[Peace-discuss] Repeating a lie doesn't make it true

Mon Feb 4 02:41:04 CST 2008

Carl,
  To set the record straight so that nobody is repeating a lie to try to make it true: Obama has said/continures to say he was against the war in Iraq "from the first" which predates 2005. I heard him a number of times in 2004 when he was running for U S senate (including in person at a house fund-raiser and at Greg Hall) and he was unequivocally and outspokenly against the war in Iraq at that time. When he got to Wash, he softened his stance on a number of issues, which Nation mag said was necessary and pragmatic for a junior senator, but which I tho't was unnecessary and disappointing. And he hasn't improved since then -- every time I'm willing to cut him a little slack, he says something even more dreadful than he said the week before. That being said, I think Obama's the best chance we've got, so I think we have to hope he chooses a decent running mate and then help him get elected... and then help him get back to the way he was "from the first."
   --Jenifer 

"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
  Both Clinton and Obama seems to find it necessary to lie about the war, given 
the majority anti-war sentiment in the country. Clinton lies about the 
circumstances of her husband's murderous actions, and Obama lies about the 
positions he's taken.

Obama's been dining out on the line that he "opposed the war from the 
beginning." But those of us who heard him speak at his rally in Champaign in 
August 2005 know that that's not true. An acute Daily Illini reporter described 
the typical Obama straddle: "Obama attempted to align himself with the 
[anti-war] protesters' sentiments while defending his cautiousness toward a 
pullout."

He said that he hoped US troops "could begin to leave Iraq next year [2006]; 
[but] removing the troops now would result in a massive bloodbath for both 
countries [sic]." That was, of course, almost identical with the 
administration's position, and it contrasted sharply with the view expressed 
that summer by Cindy Sheehan, who pointed out that one was either for the ending 
of the war and the withdrawal of the U.S. from Iraq, or for its continuance.

The day before his 2004 convention speech, Obama told reporters, "There's not 
that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this 
stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." In the 
speech Obama criticized Bush for invading Iraq "without enough troops to win the 
war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world."

Obama voted twice (once in committee and once on the Senate floor) to confirm 
Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser during the invasion of Iraq, as 
Secretary of State. (His senior colleague, Richard Durbin, along with thirteen 
other Democrats, managed to vote no.)

Like all but six of the Senate Democrats, Obama quite rightly voted against the 
confirmation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the promoter of the torture 
policy and the Patriot Act, but he said he did so "At a time when we are 
fighting for freedom in places like Iraq and Afghanistan ... the seeds of 
democracy began to take root in Iraq ... we are engaged in a deadly global 
struggle with those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for 
exercising the most basic freedoms..." In short, he echoed the administration's 
account of the war.

In 2005 Obama said, "It is a challenge now to try to fix the mess that has been 
made by this administration. There aren't any easy answers. It would be 
irresponsible to just spout off without having thought through what all the 
alternatives -- and implications of those alternatives -- might be ... I believe 
the president must take a realistic look at our current strategy and reshape it 
into an *aggressive and workable plan that will ensure success in Iraq*" 
[emphasis added].

Perhaps most disturbingly for the future, during his senatorial campaign Obama 
supported the possibility of a pre-emptive attack on Iran. On 25 September 2004, 
the Chicago Tribune wrote, "...the United States should not rule out military 
strikes to destroy nuclear production sites in Iran, Obama said ... 'having a 
radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse [than] us 
launching some missile strikes into Iran...' he said."

A further example of Obama's support for a general Middle Eastern war policy, of 
which the invasion of Iraq was a part, (while he attempted to reap electoral 
advantage from the difficulties of that invasion) was his comments about bombing 
Pakistan. Reuters reported last August that "Obama said if elected in November 
2008 he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from 
the Pakistani government."

Obama's much-advertised "opposition to the war" didn't include support for 
withdrawal, but rather -- like Clinton -- support for the ongoing war policy in 
the Middle East. --CGE

David Green wrote:
> http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1750
> 
> I hope that somebody will write a letter to the N-G incorporating this 
> information, challenging this lie, and flatly stating that we are in 
> Iraq just as much because of the first Clinton as because of the second 
> Bush. If BC had ended the sanctions, this could not have happened. 
> Instead, he raised the volume. Folks need to be reminded that nobody 
> opposed to this war can vote for HC in good conscience, regardless of 
> the alternatives.
> 
> DG
> 
> Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, 
> is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning 
> Us to Death. He said today:
> 
> "If facts matter, then it should matter that Hillary Clinton chose to 
> rely on such a basic falsehood during the debate when she flatly stated: 
> 'We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out 
> inspectors.' In fact, just prior to the Clinton administration' s 
> several days of bombing Iraq in December 1998, the U.N.'s UNSCOM weapons 
> inspectors left Iraq when UNSCOM head Richard Butler withdrew them - 
> because the Clinton administration made it clear that the U.S. 
> government was about to start bombing."
> 
> Solomon added: "That false statement by Hillary Clinton during the 
> debate Thursday evening came as she was trying to verbally navigate what 
> were her most difficult moments of the night: about her vote for the 
> October 2002 congressional resolution that authorized an invasion of 
> Iraq. At that point in the debate, she was arguing that she had made 
> what she called a 'reasoned judgment' which assumed that Saddam Hussein 
> had a record of blocking inspectors so they couldn't find his weapons of 
> mass destruction. In the process, her extreme distortion of history - 
> asserting that the four-year absence of U.N. inspectors from Iraq was 
> because Saddam 'threw out inspectors' in December 1998 - goes to the 
> core of her candor about the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and her 
> rationale for voting to authorize it.
> 
> "Any journalists interested in fact-checking Senator Clinton's claim 
> that 'We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out 
> inspectors' would be well-advised to stick to relying on the original 
> reportage of what occurred in December 1998. Since then, a 
> self-referential myth has developed in retrospective news coverage of 
> those events, with journalists and politicians alike frequently 
> recycling the false assertion that the four-year absence of U.N. 
> inspectors from Iraq began when Saddam kicked them out of the country."
> 
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