How To Spew Utter Nonsense: The Fox News Edition

Headline at Fox Nation today:

“Fact: Bush Had 2 Times More Coalition Partners in Iraq Than Obama Has in Libya”

Pretty impressive stuff, eh? They then list the coalition partners for each conflict:

Coalition Countries – Iraq – 2003

Afghanistan
Albania
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Hungary
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Philippines
Poland
Romania
Slovakia
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
Uzbekistan

[Source: US State Department]

Coalition – Libya – 2011

United States
France
United Kingdom
Italy
Canada
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Qatar
Spain
Greece
Germany
Poland
Jordan
Morocco
United Arab Emirate

Now let’s look a little closer. Here are a few of those critical allies we’re missing in Libya:

• Afghanistan
• Albania
• Azerbaijan
• Bulgaria
• Eritrea
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Macedonia
• Uzbekistan

Remind me what possible difference it makes if Macedonia or Eritria is a member of the “coalition”? What are they going to do, lend us their two rowboats and a canoe? It’s a great example of desperately finding anything at all to throw against the administration simply because they’re on the other side. You can object to our involvement but at least try to have a reason.

Update: I should also be noted that Fox’s list (which has no citation) for some reason does not include the members of the UN Security Council who explicitly voted for the No Fly Zone: Bosnia, Colombia, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, and South Africa.

About these ads