Another Top Secret leak changes nothing

The publication of yet another top secret document in the Madrid, Spain daily newspaper, El Pais, Wednesday, resolves several questions, and negates several allegations held against President Bush by liberal politicians and media. The conversation took place between then Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, President Bush, and Condoleeza Rice, on February 22, 2003, at Crawford, Texas.
Certainly, this transcript will be cherry picked, and certain elements taken out of context by isolationists and liberals, who will claim that this president plotted war. But a thorough reading of the document will show that President Bush would have much rather found a way to dispose of Saddam that excluded unilateral action or even war.

Aznar: Actually, the best success would be to win the game without firing a single shot when entering Baghdad.
Bush: To me, it would be the best outcome. I don’t want war. I know what war is like. I know the death and destruction they bring. I am the one who has to comfort the mothers and wives of the dead. Of course, for us [a diplomatic solution] would be the best one. Also, it would save 50 billion dollars.

We know that this statement will be ignored by those who have created for themselves a reality in which the President is a war monger who would attack a country before considering diplomatic means. It just doesn't make sense in their world. To acknowledge this statement would be to admit error, which they feel would weaken their position.
It is widely known that, later in March, Saddam was given a last chance to step down by accepting exile in China, which he refused, because, according to former Iraqi General Georges Sada, he didn't want to give up his money and oil. However, in February, Saddam Hussein was in negotiations with Egypt for an exile deal:

Bush: The Egyptians are talking with Saddam Hussein. It seems he has hinted he’d be willing to leave if he’s allowed to take 1 billion dollars and all the information on WMDs. Ghadaffi told Berlusconi that Saddam wants to leave. Mubarak tells us that in these circumstances there is a big chance that he’ll get killed.

...and all the information on WMDs? Wait a minute. The haters believe that there were no WMDs or research on such. This will be ignored in their assessment as easily as the banishment from Iraq of the UN weapons inspecters in November 2002. At that time, the inspection team had been given by Saddam a list of facilities they could enter to inspect. When they tried to enter one such facility, they were barred, being told that it had been removed from the list. There was something there that Saddam Hussein did not want the UN weapons inspecters to see, and the inspecters left Iraq shortly afterward, not knowing what it was.
President Bush revealed his views on the situation in this passage:

Bush: No guarantees. He’s a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa. When we go in, we are going to discover many more crimes, and we’ll take him to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Saddam Hussein believes he has escaped. He thinks that France and Germany have stopped the process of his prosecution. He also thinks that last week’s anti-war demonstrations [Saturday, February 15] protect him. And he believes I’m weakened. But people around him know that things are totally different. They know their future is in exile or in a coffin. This is why it’s so important to keep the pressure up. Ghaddafi is indirectly telling us that this is the only thing that can finish him. Saddam’s only strategy is delay, delay, delay.

There is no denying the fact that Bush wanted to put an end to Saddam's one way or the other. He had many more reasons to do so than just the information on WMDs.

Bush: We would like to act with the mandate of the UN. If we act militarily, we’ll do it with great precision and focus on our targets to as high a degree as possible. We’ll decimate the loyal troops, and the regular army will quickly know what it’s all about. We sent a very clear message to Saddam Hussein’s generals: we will treat them as war criminals. We know they have stocked big amounts of dynamite to blow up the bridges and other infrastructure, and the oil wells. We are planning to take control of those wells very soon. Also, the Saudis will help us by putting as much oil as necessary on the market. We are developing a very strong aid package. We can win without destruction. We are already working on the post-Saddam Iraq, and I think there’s a basis for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a relatively strong civil society. It could be organized as a federation. Meanwhile we’re doing all we can to fulfill the political needs of our friends and allies...
... I’m guided by a historical sense of responsibility, as you are. When history judges us in a few years, I don’t want people wondering why Bush, Aznar, or Blair didn’t confront their responsibilities. At the end of the day, what people want is to enjoy freedom. A short time ago, in Romania, I was reminded of Ceaucescu’s example: it only took a woman to call him a liar for the whole regime to come crumbling down. It’s the irrepressible power of freedom. I’m convinced I’ll achieve the resolution.

When combined with other information we had at the time, this document gives us a better insight as to how we got to Iraq. The question now is how do we get out? Will we be successful in establishing a stable country, or will we be forced by the media and the haters to leave a nation that could easily be as much, if not more, of a threat to international trade and economy as Hussein's Iraq.
The transcript cited here can be found in its entirety at Pajamas Media, along with comments by Jose Guardia.

Would they have laughed?

Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, Iran's president found common ground with the students at Columbia University as he spoke about Science coming from God. Of course, he did, because we know Albert Einstein believed the same, as does Stephen Hawking, as do many Christians who are not on the Creationist fringe. Because we believe science is part of God, doesn't make us Islamic.
Once he did find common ground, he managed to avoid the questions he had been charged to answer by using rhetorical questions and talking about what amounted to political responsibility.
When he was asked if he called for the destruction of Israel, he refused to answer "Yes" or "No"
When he avoided the question of the murder of homosexuals in Iran, he denied that Iran had homosexuals. The students of Columbia laughed, finding mass murder hilarious. Would they have laughed if, say, President Bush had made that kind of statement about the United States?
While Mahmoud was speaking about the respect of women in Iran, and of the humanity of Iran's rulers, would they have swallowed that line of malarky if they had seen this video?
Warning: the video you see when clicking the above hypertext is extremely violent, and should not be viewed by children It depicts the stoning of two women in Iran, and I do not recommend it being viewed by anyone who may be emotionally effected by violence. I could only watch about seven minutes of it, and the images still haunt me. Click at your own risk.

I gotta get me one of these!

From the "Oddee" blog.