This letter needs to be debunked

[alfredo]

This was posted today, Feb. 8, 2007 in the Lexington Herald-Leader. This letter promotes lies about Bill Clinton.

It's all relative
Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started the Iraq war. They complain about his prosecution of it. Care to compare past presidents and their misguided management claims?
Harry Truman finished that war and then started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 a year.
John F. Kennedy got the U.S. military involved in the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Then Lyndon Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 a year.
Bill Clinton went to war in Bosnia without U.N. consent. Bosnia never attacked us. Clinton was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing.
Bush is the worst president in history? Not a chance. Our military is awesome, and we have an incredible president in George W. Bush.
So before liberals start whining about how long the war in Iraq is taking, they should consider how long it took to count the votes in Florida or how long then-Attorney General Janet Reno took to take out the Branch Davidian compound, or how long it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose law firm billing records.
George Pack ?Lexington


Read the letters from that day here: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/16649339.htm
To post a letter, go here: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/letters/

Thoughts:


Kennedy, LBJ, and Truman are long dead, just because they screwed up during their presidency doesn't give Mr bush a pass.
who turned the Florida vote count into the circus? Who sent party operatives to Florida to disrupt the count?
Bosnia was a Nato operation, needing no UN approval.
Norh Korea attacked the south. We didn't start that war.
The Osama story omits that the offers were not credible and were nothing more than get rich quick schemes by criminal elements.
Waco was a standoff that began during the Bush 1 administration. Because children were present complicated the standoff. Bush 1 also handed off the Somali situation to Clinton.


I can't do the reply to this because I had a letter printed last week, so I have to wait a month.

If you would like to write a reply, try to keep it under 250 words.

[bryant69]

1. Another thing to note

Clinton was not offered Osama bin Ladin's head on a platter - this is a gross canard (i.e. a big duck).

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Beelzebud]

2. "Osama's head on a platter" Why do you suppose it's told like that by EVERYONE who peddles the lie?

Sean Hannity sometimes throws in Silver Platter, but the same line remains.

One person wrote the lie, and all the parrots just keep regurgitating it over and over again.

[ET Awful]

3. Why would I want to try to debunk a rehashing of a right-wing BS

spam mail that's been circulating for three plus years and is now being published by a newspaper?

The same letter has been circulating for years with one minor alteration, it previously referred to finding weapons of mass destruction instead of the war as a whole.

Here:

http://www.buzzflash.com/perspectives/04/worstpresident.html

Try here too:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/glenn.asp

Notice the similarities? These freaks can't think for themselves, they re-hash old poppycock and try to pass it off as fact.

[meegbear]

13. You beat me to it!

:hi:

[alfredo]

18. I wonder who authors these lies? The rhetoric seems to

be similar from one e-mail to the next.

[hobbit709]

4. This idiot is beyond Kool-Aid drinking

He's snorting the powder right out of the package.

[ClassWarrior]

5. Reply all and ask for links.

Say it's irresponsible to email allegations without facts to back them up.

NGU.

[creeksneakers2]

6. I think the UN sanctioned the war in Korea

It only took Janet Reno three days to wipe out the compound at Waco. She was just sworn in.

[Tempest]

7. Bosnia was a NATO operation

Clinton didn't instigate the request from NATO for U.S. troops, he sent U.S. troops after NATO requested them.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

8. Hrm...they usually blame Ruby Ridge on Clinton, too.

(Even though that happened on Bush 41's watch.)

They're slipping.

[Selatius]

9. A liberal does not necessarily a Democrat make

There were anti-war elements present through all the wars of the 20th century including even World War 2. Just because a person is a Democrat or a liberal does not necessarily mean he supports what a Democratic president does, especially on issues of war and peace and foreign policy. Johnson was a prick, and Korea wouldn't have happened if the elections in South Korea had been allowed to happen, and Clinton's adventurism from Somalia to Iraq was something I would not have supported at any rate. He was a fucking fool on that score.

True, just because there were screw-ups in the past does not excuse screw-ups now. Foreign policy is a problem for America through both Democratic and Republican administrations. There is more than enough blood of innocent people in Latin America, Africa, and Asia to go around, and no amount of mudslinging can cover the shame of slaughtering innocent people and exploiting hundreds of millions of poor people across the world in the name of greater profit.

[meegbear]

10. This is a documented chain email!

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/johnglenn.html

Also in Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/glenn.asp

He couldn't even write his own letter.

[Tempest]

11. Email the editor of the paper and tell them they printed an astroturf letter

Editors hate finding out they've printed astroturf letters.

Every time I find one in my newspaper, I send an email to the editor and she prints an apology in the paper.

Use the links provided in post #3 to prove it's an astroturf letter.


The managing editor's email address is: [e-mail]

I just whipped off a email to him.

[alfredo]

17. Thank you.

I am writing one right now.

[alfredo]

19. I got a reply from the editor. He called it astroturf and

referred it to the editor in charge of letters to the editor.

In my letter I had him google the terms "Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started the Iraq war" and pointed him to the link I found that showed the letter to be plagiarized.

Thanks again.

[Sweet Freedom]

12. I believe this has already been posted in our Debunker

I'll look...

[Sweet Freedom]

14. Here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=284x15

[wryter2000]

15. It took 4 years to count the vote in Florida?

And how many people died because of that vote count?

[FrenchieCat]

16. You are right. Full of inaccuracies.....

For starters, we didn't go to war against Bosnia. We brokered a peace treaty in Bosnia under the Clinton Administration. 200,000 died before we intervened by calling a truce and then ironing it out with the Dayton Accords. http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/icty/dayton/daytonaccord.html

We intervened in Kosovo, which is not the same. 7,000 died there before any bombs were dropped. Kosovo was a NATO action and the troops which were involved were multinational.

On March 11, 1999, after repression of ethnic Albanians and failed negotiations,112 Congress addressed the impending conflict in Kosovo. On this date, only thirteen days before the President ordered air strikes, the House adopted House Concurrent Resolution 42,113 authorizing the President to send U.S. troops to Kosovo as peacekeepers.114 The measure garnered a fair amount of support, passing by a vote of 219 to 191.115 However, this measure was premised on the use of troops in a place where war was absent, with all parties consenting to the presence of foreign soldiers.116 As a result, no inference can be made that this vote, even in conjunction with subsequent votes, demonstrated approval of the air war.117
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3805/is_200107/ai_n8985421/pg_8

[Mz Pip]

20. Here are some excellent comments

Variations of this email have been around for a long time. Most of the points made are debunked quite nicely at this link.

http://www.local8-0237.com/interesting_facts_rebuttal.htm

Mz Pip
:dem: