<< UNDERSTANDING OF THE WHYING ~ MAIN ~ ENDANGERED SPECIES >>
MEETING RECALLED
Er, reputable sources quoted by the BBC paint an interesting picture of George W. Bush:
In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9.00pm on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.
Nabil Shaath says: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did, and then God would tell me, “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …” And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, “Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.” And by God I’m gonna do it.’”
Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: “I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state.”
Those quotes sound a little imaginative.
UPDATE. More on this from Scott Burgess and Pat Curley.
UPDATE II. A denial from Abbas:
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has denied an account by another Palestinian official of a meeting with US President George Bush in which Bush is cited as saying he believed that God told him to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq ...
“This report is not true,” the Abbas statement said today. “I have never heard President Bush talking about religion as a reason behind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush has never mentioned that in front of me on any occasion and specifically not during my visit in 2003.”
UPDATE III. And a denial from White House press secretary Scott McClellan: “He’s never made such comments.”
UPDATE IV. Gullible letter writers in The Australian:
Now that the BBC has reported that President George W. Bush has said that God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, Australians are entitled to ask if God also instructed John Howard to invade these countries. If not, surely we are entitled to ask if President Bush is channelling God to Mr Howard, and whether or not God is getting ready to also invade Iran.
If instructions are coming to our Government from on high, then we must know about it. Think of the savings to be made in Canberra if operational policies are coming from such a source.
R. Adams
Mosman, NSWAny credibility the US may have had for leading a secular, morally superior campaign against terrorism is shattered with reports that George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on instruction from God.
Sandra K. Eckersley
Marrickville NSW
(Via Bruce Rheinstein and Murph)
Are there any minor three-part series, aside from the imminent sweep of the San Diego Padres?
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2005 10 06 at 01:15 PM • permalinkThose quotes sound a little imaginative.
You cynical bastard.
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 10 06 at 01:26 PM • permalinkI had a meeting with Bush too:
Rove: First you trade the Cadillac for a microphone. Then you lie to me about the band. Now you’re gonna put me right back in the joint.
George: They’re not gonna catch us. We’re on a mission from God.His words are seared, seared in my mind.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 10 06 at 02:03 PM • permalinkThese quotes were used in that MoveOn.org ad juxtaposing Bush with Hitler, and they were manufactured.
Guess what? Now they’re “true”! Just like Korans in toilets.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2005 10 06 at 02:53 PM • permalinkIt’s getting hard to keep up with them all. Let’s see:
1. The plastic turkeys,
2. The Deputy Sheriff quote,
3. The hidden radio during the debate,
4. The Texas National Guard letters,
5. Nobody but Bush was concerned about WMDs,
6. If we had ratified Kyoto, New Orleans would have been saved,And now, like something out of the Blues Brothers,
7. “I’m on a mission from GOD!”
Just for that, Torontosteve, you can wait another 38 years, unless you turn over a new Leaf.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2005 10 06 at 04:01 PM • permalink#13 Not even a Democrat would believe in those statements!
Ah yes, but while they realise the quote was fake, the story would still be true.
/channelling Dan Rather
—Nick
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 10 06 at 04:34 PM • permalinkDefinitely “imaginitive”.
Also “fanciful”, “inventive” and “completely fabricated”.
Posted by scaramouche on 2005 10 06 at 05:01 PM • permalinkErnieG,
Here’s a few more:
8. It was all about oil.
9. It was all about giving Bush and his business cohorts a chance to make billions in profits (a la Halliburton)
10. Bush decided to invade Iraq before 9/11.
11. It was about making an empire
12. The US indiscriminately bombed and killed innocent civilians, resulting in 100,000+ dead
13. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with the war against terrorism.
14. The war in Iraq was an elective thing, and not necessary in the least
15. America and the West face little danger from Muslims
16. The terrorists were driven by US actions to commit acts of terrorism
17. The war is helping the terrorists by increasing their recruitment
18. Islam is a religion of peaceAnd the one that makes me most mad,
19. Bush lied!
(please excuse the lack of bold tags, nobody will share theirs with me, in spite of the fact that I always share with others here, well, at least my wisdom and prodigious intelligence)
Posted by wronwright on 2005 10 06 at 05:29 PM • permalinkSounds a lot like the abuse of former Interior Secretary James Watt. He was quoted as testifying to Congress that the environment wouldn’t matter after Jesus returns. No less an eminence than Bill Moyers eventually cited this as fact, then got his head handed to him by Watt himself.
I think it’s fear that drives people to make up stuff like this. Like the boy in school we all heard had sex with his sister, it’s the horror that drives the talk, not facts.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2005 10 06 at 05:34 PM • permalinkCome on people, this is what happens when you only have single layered tin foil hats. Move on org reccomends triple layers so the jooish mind control rays cant get you.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 10 06 at 07:22 PM • permalinkThe Age couldn’t resist the story, of course:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/iraq/god-told-me-to-invade-says-bush/2005/10/07/1128562952070.html
Sounds like somebody pencilled in new names on the script of “The Reagans…”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 06 at 08:36 PM • permalinkOkay, a bit more research leads me to conclude that what’s happening is this:
The BBC is reporting a new interview with Abbas and friends where they’re repeating what Ha’aretz reported in June 2003 as the minutes of Bush’s meeting with them. The minutes contained those quotes then, and now the Palestinians are repeating them. And the MoveOn.org-solicited ad used the quotes as originally reported in 2003.
So I have to conclude that either Abbas and his cohorts have really got their story together for the cameras, or else perhaps the quotes are indeed accurate.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2005 10 06 at 11:35 PM • permalinkCraigS and others: I don’t know why the rss feed isn’t working. I loaded up the feedreader I have (called Feedreader, it’s free from Atom or somebody) and I can update it to Tim’s latest posts. RSS has always worked wackily around here, and I don’t feel like spending any more time than I have on it because it only ends in frustration. There’s this thing we used to do back in the old days… it was called… let me see… Oh yeah: we’d put our favorite, check-every-day websites in something called a “bookmarks folder.”
I hate rss. Can you tell? It used to be “your webpage colors/layout/whatever is difficult for me to read.” Then you find out that they are have some sort of weird colorblindness like not being able to see anything in the blue part of the spectrum, or they have ancient monitors that only go to 256 colors and a resolution no higher than 640x480, or they’re trying to use some off-brand browser like Opera for the Sun-Irix OS. And don’t even get me started on the dark-text-on-light-backgrounds vs. the light-text-on-darkbackgrounds people. Now we have this decade’s “push” technology, rss, and if you ask me it’s like giving people an excuse to say “I don’t have time to click on a link all by my ownself, because my life is much too important and busy. Instead, people who want me to read their web pages must now go to the trouble of making sure I get a special notification of my very own, as if I were your boss or child.” The hell with that.
Anyway, the various feeds for this site can be found at the bottom of the main page under “Syndicate.” Get yourself a feedreader (there are a number of free ones) and use that to get your updates. The feed doesn’t work with Firefox’s feedreader alert thing.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 10 06 at 11:58 PM • permalinkOh yeah—and the “quotes” from Bush on how he does everything the big God voice tells him to do are bogus, and anyone who believes he said stupid things like that should just go punch themselves in the face right now.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 10 07 at 12:00 AM • permalink#36
There’s this thing we used to do back in the old days… it was called… let me see… Oh yeah: we’d put our favorite, check-every-day websites in something called a “bookmarks folder.”
Bookmarks? Loogsherie! I remember when we had to manually type in IP addresses to our Gopher client.
Seriously though, last article on Atom feed is Thu, Sep 15 2005. Last on RSS 2.0 is Fri, Sep 30.
It’s whacked. If you don’t want to fix it, that’s your right (though I think it would be a shame). Might I suggest however you remove the link or indicate that it’s bodgy.
That way, you don’t miss traffic of those who assume (incorrectly) that the site hasn’t been updated based on the word of their RSS client.
Well—is there a reputable source on those quotes being bogus? I’ve been googling around all evening and I can’t find anything debunking them. As far as I can tell, the Abbas interview/meeting is where the story begins and ends, but unless we’re prepared to just assume they’re lying (and doing a good job of it, too), I see no reason to believe the quotes didn’t actually happen.
Of course, they also came through a translator, and we don’t know the context—maybe they had no common ground until Bush decided to try to appeal to their religious sense, or something. I don’t think the quotes are scandalous, but if they can be shown to be bogus, so much the better.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2005 10 07 at 12:43 AM • permalinkIt doesn’t matter too how much how badly the Palestinians misquate and mangle Bush’s words, the media are already doing a good enough job as it is.
Anyway, the message that the Palestinians got was “Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East”. Now as long as the Palestinian leaders get that Israeli security and peace in the middle east are pre-requisites before they get a state things aint too bad.
Well—is there a reputable source on those quotes being bogus?
Oh give me a f*cking break, Brian, you’re asking us to prove a negative. The ONLY source for this crap is the Palestinians and if you are so eager to believe that dubious crew, you must be living in Bizarro World.
BTW, although I’m sure you’ll scoff, the White House flatly denies the PA’s claim.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 10 07 at 02:22 AM • permalinkThat should be for Brian Tiemann, not Brian in #42…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 10 07 at 02:24 AM • permalinkDude! Lay off, I’m on YOUR side.
I just don’t want us to look stupid by not giving this matter due diligence. I’m no more likely to believe anything the Palestinians say than Charles Johnson, but if they’re repeating something verbatim that happened over two years ago, either they’re really well rehearsed (and how precisely would fabricating the quotes help them?), or they’re accurate.
If you’ll notice, I was the one who first pointed out that the quotes were recycled into that stupid MoveOn.org video, and I’m just trying to make sure the record is straight here. Or would you rather we add to the list of perpetuated inaccuracies in #11?
Geez. I’m trying to HELP here. Sorry I’m not sufficiently irreverent.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2005 10 07 at 02:43 AM • permalinkAnd thank you for the link; a White House denial is perfectly sufficient for me. It’s exactly what I’d been looking for all evening, to no avail. Glad to see they’re on top of things.
(“I’m sure you’ll scoff”. Criminy.)
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2005 10 07 at 02:47 AM • permalinkNo, but I did tell him she’ll be a terrific justice. If she gets rejected, well, all I’ll say is that it’s still hurricane season in the D.C. area. Maybe they could use a few of those in the Gulf and the Eastern Med.
I also told him to keep his mouth shut about that mission I assigned him. He’s going to have be struck dumb a little longer for that.
Even if the quotes are true, the context suggests GWB was using a metaphor to show he is committed to the task. Just as Jake and Elwood being on a Mission from God - just a metaphor.
Regarding giving a Palestinian state, I hear a part of France is going to be allocated for the the people from Palestine. They are going to call the region ‘Frankenstine.’
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 2005 10 07 at 04:50 AM • permalinkLike we’d believe a former terrorist who still goes by his nom de guerre.
Posted by Young and Free on 2005 10 07 at 04:54 AM • permalink# 27 We may jest but there are people who will hear this b*****it and believe it.
20. Bush stole the election
Yes, I had it said to me 2 weeks ago by a 35 yr old naval lieutenant. We disagreed on the issue but mainly I couldn’t believe that this one was still around. Like bad body odour, it lingers.
That’s why he’s still a LT at 35. Most of his peers would be at least LCDR, if not CDR by now.
Posted by Young and Free on 2005 10 07 at 04:57 AM • permalinkSounds a lot like a demo of ‘taqiyya’ to me. The question is, why would anyone believe one word that comes from the mouths of members of the only religion that gives its followers permission to lie. Have people forgotten the corpse that got up and walked, the little boy ‘shot down’ by Israeli soldiers, the ‘500 dead Palestinians’ at Jenin, the spin and outright lies about Rachel Corrie - need I go on?
Dan Lewis, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I click on the atom feed, and I see the latest post. And did you not read where I said the reader I use also updates to the most recent posts? Maybe you need to get a better rss reader.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 10 07 at 06:45 AM • permalinkNot surprisingly, The Independent is swallowing the story whole:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article317805.ece
There’s no way Bush can disprove he said it, of course, so this meme is here to stay. (Even if he produced a recording of the meeting, the “reality-based community” would say the recording was edited or completely fabricated.)
No one’s said they’ve heard the story, so here goes.
A guy walked into a bar and saw his old pal, George W, sitting in a booth at the back and deep in conversation with Donald Rumsfeld. It had been a long time since the guy had seen his old pal so he sauntered down (past all the Secret Service fellows - who did the necessary) and asked how things were; what had been happening. George turned to Rumsfeld and told him to give the guy a run down on what they were discussing. So Rumsfeld said, “We’re planning to drop a nuclear weapon that will kill 4,000,000 M****m* and a blonde woman with very large bosoms.”
The guy was astonished and asked Rumsfeld, “Why do you want to kill a blonde woman with very large bosoms?”
And Rumsfeld said ....
I heard this story while sitting at a table in a restaurant in a fancy hotel. The guy who told it was a member of a large party sitting at a row of tables close by and the thing that struck me was that the story teller made no attempt to keep his voice down. He’d probably had a few but he was not slurring his words and was on his feet, not wobbling at all.
I was very encouraged by his willingness to so loudly tell a completely non PC joke. I was even more encouraged by the fact that after he’d delivered the punch line, and despite the fact that there were plenty of diners there who were not connected to that group, no one looked even huffily offended, much less got up and offered to punch him in the nose. Everyone was too busy laughing, either out loud or with that shoulder shaking thing you do when you’re full of mirth but don’t want to betray yourself completely as an eavesdropper.
Either the chardonnay socialist do gooder why-ners have become more of a minority than I’d previously had reason to believe or they don’t go to Broome in the dry season. Either one is good.
Besides the fabricated quotes, I find it interesting that the BBC refers to the Palestinian Prime Minister exclusively by his honorific “Abu Mazen” (which tends to be associated with his days as an, err, “freedom fighter”) instead of his actual name Mahmoud Abbas. I don’t recall other news organizations going out of their way like that.
Laurence Simon, at This Blog Is Full of Crap, nails it:
Folks, there’s something you’re overlooking in all this “Bush is a crazed Jesus freak” ruckus: all this God-talk is based on hearsay passed between Mahmoud Abbas, Achmed Queri and Saeb Erekat in the presence of various Palestinian terrorist leaders.
Many of these people have publicly expressed views that Jews are poisoning their water supply, harvesting organs from refugees, releasing toxic waste into their homes, intentionally firing upon women and babies for sport, poisoning the food, murdering civilians who just happen to have rifles and grenades and rockets on them for no apparent reason, setting off civilian-killing explosives in public terror rallies, and so on.
Let me guess… this “God told me to invade Iraq” statement was then faxed to Mary Mapes who handed it to Dan Rather for vetting, right?
if they’re repeating something verbatim that happened over two years ago, either they’re really well rehearsed (and how precisely would fabricating the quotes help them?), or they’re accurate.
How long have you been following the actions of the Palestinians? We’re talking about people who will publicly state they planned the “intifada” ahead of time, then say it was completely spontaneous and the result of Israeli provocation. They are, simply put, liars through and through.
How will fabricating quotes help them? Does it matter? They’re feeding the BBC what it wants to hear—that Bush is a religious nut, but even he thinks they should have a state.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 10 07 at 07:59 AM • permalinkOT: Deo Vindice, from a few threads down (wasn’t sure if you’re gonna see it there, so posting here instead):
Habib. I’m apparently barred from entering the USA at the moment.
Seems that a customs officer didnt take off my passport’s ‘exit USA tag’ from a previous visit - I’m now classified as an ‘overstayer’ until I prove otherwise to Homeland Security.Yeah, I had the same thing happen to me several years back. I actually managed to enter the US again before I’d even noticed it, probably because my old passport had expired and the new one had a different number…both entries were before 9/11 though, so maybe that played a role, too. At any rate, it’s the airline attendants who are supposed to collect the exit stubs, not the customs officers.
Information on what to do now can be found here. Seemed to work for me…at least I did manage to get my student visa last year without any trouble.
From the 10/6 White House Press Briefing:
Q Have you ever heard the President say that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and—
MR. McCLELLAN: No, and I’ve been in many meetings with him and never heard such a thing.
Q Are you aware of the—there’s a BBC broadcast tonight that’s quoting the Palestinian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister as saying that they were in a meeting with the President in June of ‘03, and there are some very detailed quotes here, saying that the President said to them, “God told me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan,’ and I did,” and then “God told me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in the Iraq’” and so forth and so on?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, that’s absurd. He’s never made such comments.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2005 10 07 at 10:33 AM • permalinkWhy does Abbas and Co. have to shoot their mouths off?
They’ve messed the whole thing up-if they’d kept their traps shut God had a plan to get them Saskatchewan.
Posted by madawaskan on 2005 10 07 at 12:21 PM • permalinkOops!I meant Abu Mazen, not Abbas. I can’t keep these guys straight. But-is there really a difference?
Posted by madawaskan on 2005 10 07 at 12:24 PM • permalinkI met with George Bush last week. He said God told him to give me a pony. As of today I have not recived my pony. BUSH LIED!!!1!
I see the Alternate-Reality Based community is also pushing the BBC story up the ranks of del.icio.us bookmarks. Where politics are concerned it’s a great place to keep tabs on the latest crackpot breaking stories.
#65. Travellers have long been amazemed at the complete & total lack of departure controls at the borders of the USA.
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2005 10 07 at 01:32 PM • permalink“How clearly I remember George Boosh saying, ‘Muhammad, Allah has told me that He spits on Jewish pigdogs, and only their devious cunning stops me from launching an attack that would leave occupied Palestine shiny and new.’”
Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2005 10 07 at 01:52 PM • permalinkSteve at the pub: we like it when people leave.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 10 07 at 02:03 PM • permalinkJanice, in which country was the hotel?
Posted by jake-the-peg on 2005 10 07 at 02:05 PM • permalinkhttp://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/10/battle-for-mosul-iv.html
Off topic slightly, but the latest dispatch by Michael Yon is up - - good news is like the sun.
Cheers - DC
#73 And what are you so happy about, anyway? There’s more to life than warm weather, hot women and cold beer, y’know.
Dave S is right! That’s why we have warm weather, hot guys and cold Chardonnay…
:-)
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 10 07 at 06:26 PM • permalink“we’re on a mission from God.”
“We’ve got an M1A2 Abrams, half a tank of gas, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”
“Hit it!”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 07 at 08:19 PM • permalinkAbu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: “I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state.”
Let me point out:
a) Abu Mazen speaks no English
b) George Bush speaks no Arabic.Therefore Mazen heard no such thing. Anything heard was the translation provided by his “helpful” translator.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 10 07 at 08:23 PM • permalinkFrom the 10/6 White House Press Briefing:
And from the July 1st press briefing
“It’s beyond a stretch. It’s an invention. It was not said.”Most moonbats I show that to just say its another whitehouse lie, preferring to believe what they want to hear, no matter where it comes from.
Reputable sources quoted by another reputable source. Sounds believeable to me. Hell, I’ll bet they’ve even got a memo that proves it.
Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 10 07 at 10:48 PM • permalinkAny credibility the US may have had for leading a secular, morally superior campaign against terrorism is shattered with reports that George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on instruction from God.
Sandra K. Eckersley
Marrickville NSWActually, any credibility that this letter to the editor writer had was shattered by her sheeplike willingness to believe an obviously fraudulent story.
Idiots. And we’re supposed to engage in a constructive democratic debate with these moonbats? Would the Aussie commenters here please start culling your herds. The runts are beginning to multiply.
(Yes, yes, I know, we have them here in America too. But we’re just waiting for the word from Karl.)
Posted by wronwright on 2005 10 08 at 04:19 AM • permalinkSo that’s what Lucy Ramirez has been working on since she left Texas…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 08 at 04:17 PM • permalinkoh for chrissakes! they’re at it again!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/storypane/0,9421,1^16^21682,00.html
Not only that but Marleston’s favourite f*ckwit Gavin Date even got a gig making completely unsubstantiated claims about the New York subway alert being an invention of the US govt.
#92&93;,Agree, makes me mad too. These idiots (Date and co) used to hang out at the ‘Advertiser’ letters page, turning it into a lefties corner, one of the reasons I stopped buying it. Apparantly tho that paper has now changed it’s letter format limiting the subjects.So now these left wing wankers are flooding the ‘Australian’ letters page. After Date’s latest waffle I am convinced he is a dangerous man. If ASIO are any good they should be watching this fella with some very large binos.
“Any credibility the US may have had for leading a secular, morally superior campaign against terrorism is shattered with reports that George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on instruction from God.”
What’s so unbelievable here? You’re looking at a born again Christian US president who evokes God at any opportunity in his speeches to the nation - so why is it so unbelievable that he would seek reassurance and guidance from his God for something as major as a war?
Politically it is obviously damaging to publically admit this so he (and his protective party machine) would of course deny having ever said it but it goes totally with his character. Do you seriously think he does not believe he has God on his side in what he would see as a justified moral war?
SKE is not the naive one here it’s you lot for failling to see the big picture of the obvious increased danger for the world of George W. Bush’s brazenly non-secular government. Petty bitching about what he said/ the Palestinians said/ the dog said - is just irrelevent to the big picture of global war over his God verses their God.
Dangerous stuff.
Yeah, well, name me a President who DIDN’T invoke God frequently in speeches or brazenly affirm his faith.
Clinton was a born-again Christian too, you know. History didn’t in fact begin on November 8, 2000.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2005 10 11 at 12:07 PM • permalink
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There’s a W in Elwood, so the mission from God reference is perfectly plausible.