Rocky Anderson Taken to Task by E.D. Hill

The mayor of Salt Lake City attended an anti-war (that's liberal code for anti-Bush) rally today while the president was in town to speak at an American Legion convention.

From Foxnews.com:

We interviewed the mayor and he expressed his view that due to the importance of the Iraq war he felt it was his duty to protest the president and his policies. That's fine. He's entitled to his view. But then he decided to go off-topic and claimed the president favored torture. I asked him to give even one example. He could not and instead started shifting the topic and talking around it. I asked him for one example again. He then talked about how FOX News lies and went into what sounded like fairly predictable talking points.

This must be on some DNC talking point memo somewhere, because I hear it time and time again and not once have any of these dolts backed up the claim.

During the protest rally the Mayor gave a speech, here's a link to it. It read like a hundred other speeches written before the 2004 elections, it's recycled Just a few items in his speech that I wanted to comment on.

Why invade and occupy Iraq? Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice represented to us, without qualification, that there were strong ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Link to al Qaeda? Bah. It's pretty obvious the relations was very thin if not non existent. But there are many other reason to remove a murderous dictator from power. This Rocky fellas sure has a one track mind, as with most of the anti-war (Bush) crowd. Oh, I can't wait until her starts talking about WMDs and the famous Dick Cheney and Saddam hand shaking photo.

In September, 2002, President Bush made the incredible claim that You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam.


You nitcompoop, He wreferringing to the atrocities committed between the two. The both do the same things, not that they are one in the same. Here's a snippet from the Q&A session:

Q: Mr. President, do you believe that Saddam Hussein is a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda?

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's a -- that is an interesting question. I'm trying to think of something humorous to say. (Laughter.) But I can't when I think about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.

Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it's a comparison that is -- I can't make because I can't distinguish between the two, because they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.

Here's a link to the White House's web site with the complete Q&A session.

Rocky, you need to fire your speech writer and fact checker. I have a feeling it's you. It's easy to stand up there and give a speech full of falstatementsnts and outright lies, because most of the people in the crowd feel the same way you do and would be willing to cheat and lie to get their views heard. Onward to the rest of the speech.

Even last week, when I met with Thomas Bock, National Commander of the American Legion, I asked him why we are engaged in the war in Iraq. He said, Why, of course, because of the 9/11 attacks on our country. I asked, What did Iraq have to do with those attacks? He looked puzzled, then said, Well, the connection between al Qaeda and Iraq.

I sent an email to Mr. Thomas questioning the truth behind this statement. From what I hear, Mr. Thomas is an honest and truthful man and I expect he will answer honestly. I'll keep you posted.

Besides the fictions of Saddam Hussein somehow being linked to the 9/11 attacks and his supposed connection with al Qaeda, what was the principal justification for forgoing additional weapons inspections, failing to work with our allies toward a solution, refraining from seeking additional resolutions from the United Nations, and hurrying to war a so-called“pre-emptive war– in which we would attack and occupy a Muslim nation that posed no security risk to the United States, and cause the deaths of many thousands of innocent men, women, and children – and the deaths and lifetime injuries to many thousands of our own servicemen and service women?

Rocky, Saddam was a risk. Not only to us, but to our allies. You worry about the deaths of "many thousands of innocent men, women and children" but fail to understand that Saddam was killing this people, tortured and tourtured them day in and day out. How many thousands has he killed all these year that he has been in power and how many would he have killed before his reign of terror ended? You claim that we fail to work with our allies, but you are willing to turn your back on them when a threat shows itself to be a danger to them. What "allies" are you talking about? France, Russia or any of the other countries that opposed our actions in Iraq. What about the allies that supported our actions?

1. United States - 100,000 troops
   
2. United Kingdom - 5,000 troops
   
3. Italy - 1,000-5,000 troops
   
4. Republic of Korea - 2,30Australia
5. Austrailia - 100-999 troops
   
6. Poland - 900 troops
   
7. Romania - 865 troops
   
8. Georgia - 300 troops
   
9. Denmark - 515 troops
   
10. El Salvador - 380 troops
    
11. Azerbaijan - 150 troops
    
12. Mongolia - 131 troops
    
13. Albania - 150 non-combat troops
    
14. Latvia - 136 troops
    
15. Lithuania - 50 troops
    
16. Czech Republic - 96 police trainers
    
17. Slovakia - 104-man engineering unit
    
18. Armenia - 46 soldiers
    
19. Bosnia and Herzegovina - 36 man force to destroy explosives and clear mines
    
20. Estonia - 35 infantry troops
    
21. Macedonia - 33 special forces soldiers
    
22. Kazakhstan - 29 military engineers
    
23. Moldova - 12 de-mining specialists and medics

That looks like a list of allies to me.

Rocky bring up the WMDs. Yay, this is my favorite part.

The principal claim was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction biological and chemical weapons and was seeking to build up a nuclear weapons capability. As we now know, there was nothing no evidence whatsoever to support those claims.

You're right, he probably didn't have stock piles of WMDs to the extent that was originally thought. But are you that narrow minded to believe that this was the only reason that would have been worthy to removed this brutal dictator from power?

The truth has been established. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on the United States. There is no evidence of any operational ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. And there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

What a tragedy, leading to greater tragedy. We are fed lie after lie, our media reinforces those lies, and we are a nation led to a tragic, illegal, unprovoked
war.

The tragedy here is that you and your ilk believe these were the only reason used to justify the Iraq war. Do you know how many U.N. Resolutions Saddam broke before he was taken from power? I bet you don't even have a clue. I'll help you out here, 16. In your book, how many did he have to break before he should have been removed from power?

Consider the irony regarding the claims that Saddam had chemical weapons and, because of that, we needed to rush to war in Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons first against Iranians, then against his own people, the Kurds our country provided him with biological and chemical agents and equipment to make the weapons.

Using your logic, since we gave him these weapon many years ago we should just stand by and let him gas the hell out of his neighbors? No one took him to task back then, but G.W. Bush wasn't in office back then either was he.

Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush refused even to support economic sanctions against Hussein for his use of weapons of mass destruction. What did our nation do in response to Hussein's use of chemical weapons, killing tens of thousand of people, when he actually had them? We befriended, coddled, and rewarded him with government-guaranteed loans totaling $5 billion since 1983, freeing up currency for Hussein to modernize his military assets.

It's all them damn Repuyou'rens fault. Rocky, you'r showing your true colors here. What do you have about Clinton pussy-footing around the subject after the The first Gulf War? I would assume nothing, since you didn't say anything about him in your speech.

:::EDIT:::
Some great pictures from the rally over at Desultory Thoughts.

LOL - "The Holy Bucket Brigades"

Great work Tyler.