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Right wingers find WMDs in Iraq for the 437th time

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Guest Post by Morbo

Exactly when did right wingers, who used to pride themselves on their grounding in the real world while disdaining liberals as hopeless dreamers wearing rose-colored glasses, begin residing in fantasyland? Unable to come to grips with the world as it is, right wingers are, like some New Age devotees, increasingly claiming the ability to create their own reality. Many have simply become delusional.

For example, this week the Rev. Donald Wildmon’s OneNewsNow distorted a month-old Associated Press story and reported that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Furthermore, OneNewsNow asserted, President George W. Bush knew the weapons were there but kept quiet about the removal of this material and is thus a hero.

You probably missed this in the papers because it happened only on the Planet of Kook Right Fantasies. Back here on Earth, what really happened is this: Some low-grade yellowcake that had been stored in Iraq was shipped to Canada.

Yellowcake is milled uranium ore. In this form, it is not a WMD. Nor was the yellowcake “found” in Iraq recently. It has been there since 1991, and everyone knew that. The material was not secretly spirited out of the country. Its removal was reported in The New York Times and elsewhere.

United Nations weapons inspectors found the stuff in Iraq after the first Gulf War. Saddam Hussein did not have the capability to process the yellowcake and make it something dangerous. Still, yellowcake is potentially dangerous, so the inspectors impounded the material and sealed it up in drums. There it sat, as the years ticked by, in a facility about 12 miles from Baghdad.

Flash forward to 2008.

Iraqi officials said they’d like to get the material out of the country, so the United States arranged for it to be sold to a Canadian firm. As The New York Times reported on July 7:

Although the material cannot be used in its current form for a nuclear weapon or even a so-called dirty bomb, officials decided that in Iraq’s unstable environment, it was important to make sure it did not fall into the wrong hands.

For some reason, several right-wing blogs have been reporting this recently as some great triumph for Bush. Let’s be clear on what happened: material that is not in its present form dangerous was removed from Iraq 17 years after it was discovered and impounded. It was put on boats and shipped to Canada. Only the soft bigotry of low expectations could turn that into a foreign-policy coup.

Right wingers, I know the real world is often a scary place for you, what with reality having a liberal bias and all. But come out of that bubble. It’s full of lies and reeks of the flop sweat born of your own desperation. It can’t be very pleasant in there.

Comments

  • bkmn

    says:

    It’s the same world that republicans in MN district 16 could find it ok to endorse Mark Olson, convicted of assaulting his wife last year, and rightfully forced out of office.

    Such a standup (or smackdown) guy!

    What morons in D16!

  • Stevio

    says:

    It’s a world inhabited by the Rush’s, O’Riely’s, and Cheney, although Cheney sometimes reads news reports and has ,at times, fabricated news reports and purloined letters suggesting that plane flying building busters were trained by now dead dictators to advance his own cinical agendas. Yes, it’s a loney and scary place where things are fabricated to feed the minds of people like Bob Novak and Tony Snow with job possabilities to preach that hate and fear, and openly pronounce clear thinkers as delusional, dead-enders and tyranical socialists. What mananical fun…

  • Former Dan

    says:

    Wait till they find cleaning supplies, I mean, chemical weapons ingredients.

    As for this grounded in reality meme, the right wing believes in, that belonged for the most part to the leadership they disdained (ie: Bush I and the folks like Buckley.) Among the lower ranks? Not so much and mostly projection. Ignorant, Unaware and Stupid is a dangerous combination.

    All this is proving is “Not all Conservatives are stupid, but stupid people are mostly conservative.”

  • JoeW

    says:

    But but but!!!! Saddam might have unsealed the stuff and replaced it with sand. Then he might have processed it in facilities he didn’t have, and had given up on obtaining. After that, it’s a breeze to put the bomb on an intercontinental drone he also didn’t have and was unlikely to acquire had he lived to 175!
    Bush nipped that little scenario in the bud and saved us all from certain annihilation!

  • TCG

    says:

    Wait – I thought The WMD were sent to Syria and Iran. And that the only way we can finally secure those weapons is by invading those countries.

    Fox news couldn’t be wrong could it?

  • Shalimar

    says:

    I think we should tell the wingers that a penis pump was found in one of the palaces and it is evidence not only that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but that he was actually trying to enhance them so they reached the US.

  • Texas Aggie

    says:

    “when did right wingers, who used to pride themselves on their grounding in the real world while disdaining liberals as hopeless dreamers wearing rose-colored glasses, begin residing in fantasyland? ”

    May I suggest that they’ve never lived anywhere else? After all, it was one of them, probably Rove, who said that they made their own reality. They’ve been saying since the middle of last century that we were winning in Viet Nam, that we could have beaten Mao in China, that the State Dept. was chock full of Commies, etc. The only major disagreement they have with the Nazis is the “Jewish question.” You’ll remember that even during WWII they had economic ties to the Nazis, and that J. Edgar, their hero, thought that the facists had the right of it.

  • konchster

    says:

    Sort of confounded the Seeking Yellowcake in Niger story doesn’t since he already had plenty of it just no desire to do anything with it

  • RepublicanPointOfView

    says:

    We did not find nuclear weapons in Iraq, but we found lots of chemical and biological weapons. If the MSM was not so far up the *sses of you liberal wienies, the American public would know all about it. George Bush, our fearless leader, made a strategic decision not to publicize this – just to drive you wimps nuts.

  • Davis X. Machina

    says:

    We did not find nuclear weapons in Iraq, but we found lots of chemical and biological weapons.

    With the ability to retrospectively justify its biggest blunder, and the biggest
    foreign policy cock-up in American history since declaring war on Britain in 1812, The Bush White House took this information and made sure it:

    a.) Was used it in every Bush ad in 2004, thereby ensuring the famous 44-state blow-out election in 2004
    b.) Made the difference between keeping and losing their majorities in Congress in the 2006 midyear elections by discrediting incumbents who voted against AUMF
    c.) Featured prominently in McCain’s campaign materials, in an attempt to link McCain to the glowing Bush legacy.
    d.) Was hidden deep in a box of dry-cleaning bills for Barney-soiled carpets, so that it will never see the light of day, because that’s just how humble they are. Praise Jesus!

    You may use one of you lifelines.

  • Shalimar

    says:

    If we really found “lots of chemical and biological weapons”, then why in the world didn’t Saddam use them in the war when his control of the country was on the line? Why didn’t he order their use against US troops when he was in hiding when his life was on the line? If he really did have the weapons and didn’t use them then, what were the odds he was ever going to use them preemptively against us if we hadn’t invaded? It doesn’t make any sense.

  • Davis X. Machina

    says:

    It doesn’t make any sense.

    I know it doesn’t make any sense, and you know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s on bon RepublicanPointOfView’s talking points list, and he’s sticking to it.

    Hard worker, this fellow. Paddling upstream just a holiday to him.

  • SadOldVet

    says:

    When you read the RepublicanPointOfView, read carefully. “Our fearless leader” is a title self annointed for Kim Jung-Il, the dictator in North Korea. But perhaps, it is not kind to Kim Jung-II to compare him to George Bush.

  • joey

    says:

    I watched a r-wing fanatic process conversation and discussion by loudly screaming out some absurd, easily debunked talking point…and when it became obvious that he didn’t have a leg to stand on…he jumped to another charge…never recognizing or even accepting the debunking of the last issue. His mind seemed to be programmed to say…”not winning here” and pushes the whole thing out of his consciousness while saying to himself …”let’s try this one”.

    If you said “McCain just shot a protester in the head because he refused to put down his protest sign…his comeback would be “Well Obama called me names”.

    There is a wall there that defies reason or rationality. They don’t want to know the truth unless they already agree with it. When proven wrong on any issue they discard the entire affair vowing never to think about it again and continue on trying to find another issue to justify their already formed opinion.

    This means of course that they are incapable of learning, progressing or growing beyond their preconceived notions merely becoming frustrated at anything that doesn’t fit in regardless of truth. This also means they are incapable of bipartisanship which would force conflicting notions to be accepted so they only focus on their opinion and pretend the other side in a compromise doesn’t exist. It makes them extremely bitter to tolerate compromise.

    I stood watching this fanatic jump from issue to issue till he found one the opposition had no good response to and then watched him try to use that one single issue to suggest he must have been right on all the other issues as well, walking away convinced he’d really proved that guy wrong. It’s really sick thinking and masks some extreme underlying personality problems. No wonder they can only get along with others just like them. Just pathetic

  • madstork123

    says:

    Is this the same yellowcake that the troops found in the first few weeks of April 2003? I don’t have a link, but I remember something about soldiers reporting that they had found uranium in a warehouse or cave after they broke the UN seal.

    After it was pointed out that the material found was under UN seal and had been there since the 1991 war, the noise machine began reporting that things moved over the border.

  • Gary

    says:

    You left wing loons are just pissed because you can’t go smooze with sadam when osama with a B if he gets elected. We still have hope with McCain!!!

    Remember— 10 out of 10 terrorist agree: Anybody but McCain!!!!

  • AGB

    says:

    You are living in willful ignorance and self-deception. The yellowcake shipped to Canada was discovered by US troops in 2003 — not that we knew it was there in 1991 — see Investors Business Daily report. If YOU knew it was there, then why didn’t YOU let Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame know it?
    The fact is, the stash was kept in secret by the interim and elected government. It was 550 metric tons of yellowcake (the same yellowcake that according to WIlson — a Kerry operative) did not exist.)
    The International Community was aware of Saddams nuclear program, which, upon our discovery later, was deemed far larger than anticipated. The juge quantity of yellowcake discovered is evidence of that fact. UBD’s estimate is that the weapons grade material could build 142 nuclear bombs.
    I know. Wilson’s not finding yellowcake (which were considered WMD at the time) now turns into found yellowcake that is NOT WMD today. Nice reasoning. But it won’t wash.

    Either Bush is a liar in his 16 word statement about “British intelligence” or Joe Wilson is.

    It is now obvious to any fair minde person that it is the latter.