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US Government Caught Manipulating Wikipedia
surfi writes "As The Inquirer points out, someone with a House of Representatives IP address has been feeding propaganda into the 'invasion of Iraq' article on Wikipedia."
Well at least they are in good company with trustworthy institutions like
the CIA and the Vatican.
It matters because even today the general public doesn't seem to remember the criminal level of fraud perpetuated by this administration. Most importantly, criminal charges have not yet been brought against Bush and Cheney.
Bush/Cheney did claim that there was an Al Qaeda / Iraq connection and that Iraq had WMD, and that this posed a clear an present danger to the security of the United States. But then when faced with contrary information, e.g., from Joseph Wilson that Iraq was not in fact trying to obtain Uranium from Niger, Bush/Cheney attacked Wilson (by revealing his wife Valerie Plame was a CIA operative), instead of revising their public story.
Later Bush/Cheney nefariously blamed "intelligence failures" when in fact they knew better than anyone else that there was no credible threat from Iraq. Cheney was encumbered by a conflict of interest because, in classic Washington revolving-door style, he was re-entering politics having just served as CEO of Halliburton who ended up profiting heavily from the Iraq war. This is absolutely relevant!
Bush, as commander-in-chief, is guilty of Dereliction of Duty by both starting an unnecessary war based on lies, and then grossly incompetently managing that war. The deaths of American service men and women were absolutely avoidable because they war was unnecessary and avoidable. Abusing power, and abusing the trust and dedication of military personnel by getting them killed unnecessarily is absolutely criminal and cannot go unpunished.
The death of every American serviceperson and Iraqi civilian due to the war in Iraq is an individual charge of manslaughter against Bush.
There should also be criminal repercussions for the lesser, but still significant crimes, of distracting the US military away from the war against terrorism (in Afghanistan) to a distraction in Iraq, right when the US was most vulnerable to terrorism (after 9/11). The enormous waste of money is also criminal mismanagement.
Don't be dissuaded or intimidated by misinformation on Wikipedia, the rabid invective of idiots on FOX News, or snide comments on slashdot. Seek Justice. Seek the removal from power of Bush/Cheney from office, their arrest, and prosecution.
Thank you to those in high positions at the Pentagon who have spoken out against these crimes, usually after retirement. But those still serving in high positions of military responsibility have a continuing requirement of their positions to enforce military law with regards to the commander in chief.
"bizarre claim that there was a link between the terrorist organisation al Qaeda and the Iraq government"
Pot calling kettle black? It's not a bizarre claim. It's a fact that there was a link between bin Laden and Saddam. They both acknowledged it. I'm tired of people being so anti-Bush that they ignore the words of our enemies and try to rewrite history. Jihadists wanted to kill us long before Bush was ever in the picture. They will never go away as long as the U.S exists...period. Maybe if Clinton had done something while terrorists were killing us and blowing us up, Bush wouldn't have been left in a shitty position. Clinton spent two terms with blinders on to what was going on in the rest of the world.
Bush's big mistake was trying to come up with all these secondary reasons to go into Iraq. He didn't need any of that. We were still in a state of war with Iraq and had 10 years of him shooting at our aircraft. We also had his violation of 14 U.N resolutions, which allowed for us to take him out. Just because the rest of the U.N didn't support us, didn't mean we didn't have to right to act. There was nothing illegal about our action. Bush got Congressional approval even though it wasn't required since we were still at war.
It fine to disagree with it, but there was nothing illegal or unjust about it. What was unjust is that daddy Bush didn't finish the job the first time and let that tyrant stay in power.
Hell, the only thing Bush has gotten right was taking Saddam out. The rest of his presidency has been as bad as Clinton's.
That's funny, I thought both were reprehensible. I guess that goes to show someone like you is willing to do whatever it takes to minimize your own transgressions.
No. That's my point. The statements WITHOUT the modifiers ARE NOT factually accurate. That is the entire point I was making and I'm surprised you could have missed it.
The older edit makes it appear that Al Qaeda never had any ties with Iraq, any suspected ties were disproved. The End. That's not true, at all. Al Qaeda -- even specifically bin Laden himself -- had reported ties with Iraq as early as 1996, which were variously reported in the late 1990s. This shouldn't really be surprising. What is surprising is pretending as if this never occurred, which was what the older revision in this example did. The newer revision MAKES it accurate by saying that "some believe" Al Qaeda never had any Iraq ties.
Adding all the weasel words makes the article suck, but, as I said in another post, the entire section should really be rewritten to accurately represent the whole Al Qaeda-Iraq tie situation. No, it wasn't a substantive tie in 2003, but it is also flatly untrue to act is if there was no tie, ever, and it was all just invented.
The whole reason those were inserted is because the statements they were inserted into are NOT TRUE. There are disagreements and debate -- valid ones -- around every single one of those issues, and to just state them as unequivocal truth is at mot dishonest and at least disingenuous. That's why the edits were made. Not to make absolute facts seem uncertain. But to make it clear that uncertain issues are exactly that: uncertain.
The fact that you think the previous, unmodified comments are unmitigated truth only serves to show your bias.
You only ever comment on certain types of stories, and only to defend the US government or the status quo. Can you point me to a post where you've done anything else? And the way that you argue is a prime example of sophistry: truth and consistency mean nothing, winning the argument by convincing enough people you are right means everything. Maybe you aren't paid for what you do, which would be a pity because you do it well. If your opinions are your own, it says a lot about the type of people that are drawn to your profession.
You only comment on certain types of stories, and only to argue against the US government or the status quo. Can you point me to a post where you've done anything else? (And actually I have at times derided some decisions and situations.)
Seriously, is it any surprise I comment on things that personally interest me, as opposed to crap I don't care about?
And argument IS about convincing people that your position is "right", especially when the "truth" isn't so easily laid at one's feet. It's easy to say "there is a link", "there is no link", "it wasn't enough of a link", "he's lying", etc. When you're talking about international politics and foreign policy, there is little that can be summed up by saying someone is lying.
In this case, it may be that the staffer was voicing his own opinions. But he used weasel words where none were needed. And he did it from a government IP address. That makes it our business: he used OUR TAXPAYER FUNDED EQUIPMENT to make VERY PARTISAN and VERY MISLEADING changes. Let's analyze the changes, then we're going to analyze your post, m'kay?
The person in qiestion used weasel words because weasel words are the quickest way to change that section to actually represent reality without sitting down and rewriting it completely. They are partisan in YOUR OPINION.
1.) Alleged link/link: There was no viable link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, they were not working together, Saddam hated religion in general and Osama in particular. This has been proven again and again, yet this guy has to make it seem an open question.
What's "viable"? I already said numerous times in my other posts on this story that any link that did exist wasn't substantive. But to say there is no link is untrue. And you're doing it again. How do you explain this, under Clinton?
The U.S. had been suspicious for months, partly because of Osama bin Laden's financial ties, but also because of strong connections to Iraq. Sources say the U.S. had intercepted phone calls from the plant to a man in Iraq who runs that country's chemical weapons program.
2.) Evidence/Claims of evidence: Again, the original was sourced. The evidence of a connection was manufactured, and it came from questionable sources. This isn't opinion, it's fact. Changing that to the weaker "some claim that..." is disingenuous. Sure, people claim the evidence was manufactured, because it was. That's fact.
No. Some people claim the evidence was manufactured. It wasn't. There were collections of "evidence" both for and against various links at various levels between Al Qaeda and Iraq. It was handled how ALL intelligence is handled by policy makers. Intelligence does not exist in a vacuum. Its only purpose is to inform policy. Policy makers, by necessity and by nature in our nation, are political. It was accurate to say there was evidence of ties just as accurate as it would be to say there was evidence AGAINST ties. At best, it was ambiguous.
3.) Not credible/Some claim that: Come on, who claims he is credible? Anyone? You? Look at the quote, look at what he said, is this man credible by any stretch of the imagination?
Again, it's questionable. That's why weasel words suck for this sort of thing, and the entire section deserves rewriting. Unfortunately, weasel words are the quickest (and ugliest) way to fix it.
4.) Eventually shown/Alleged by some: They source where this was shown, a British intelligence repor