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RedditDoesn't the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee read? In a Washington Post article by Walter Pincus in Friday's edition, Representative Peter Hoekstra, who has succeeded in pushing the Bush administration to start releasing some of the 2 million documents captured in Iraq, said,
Whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them, the most important thing is that we discover the truth of what was happening in the country prior to the war.
Conservatives and war-backers have been howling for the release of all these documents because they believe--or hope--that they will contain a smoking-gun memo showing that Saddam had oodles of WMDs or was buddy-buddy with bin Laden. But so far, no soap. At least not from the first nine documents posted by the military. One actually shows that Iraqi intelligence in August 2002 was looking for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. This suggests Zarqawi was not given office space in Baghdad by Saddam, which is what some war supporters practically have claimed.
Back to Hoekstra. He's suggesting that that wily ol' Saddam destroyed his WMDs or sent them to Syria minutes before the US invaded. But if Hoekstra had bothered to read either the report from David Kay or the one from Charles Duelfer--the two pro-war fellows who headed the postwar search for WMDs--he would know that both concluded there were no significant amounts of WMDs in Iraq before the war and that Iraq's WMDs program were moribund. So there was nothing to hide or destroy. But let's wish Hoekstra well as he looks at each and every one of the two million documents for killer evidence to support the discredited prewar case for war.
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David Corn
Washington--a city of denials, spin, and political calculations. They may speak English there, but most citizens still need an interpreter to understand its ways and meanings. DAVID CORN, the Washington editor of The Nation magazine, has spent years analyzing the policies and pursuing the lies that spew out of the nation's capital. He is a novelist, biographer, and television and radio commentator who is able to both decipher and scrutinize Washington.
In his dispatches, he takes on the day-by-day political and policy battles under way in the Capitol, the White House, the think tanks, and the television studios. With an informed, unconventional perspective, he holds the politicians, policymakers and pundits accountable and reports the important facts and views that go uncovered elsewhere.
Check out David Corn's latest book, (co-written with Michael Isikoff and now available in paperback), Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown Publishers). For information, visit his personal blog at davidcorn.com.
Photo Credit: Michael Lorenzini
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hell - some msm news i saw the other night actually had a former general saying hussien was vague about his (no longer existant) wmd program because he was scared of the IRANIANS...ealized his mistake at last minute, thried to sweep up OLD wmd REFUSE left over from a decade ago, which was interpreted by our intelligence as evidence of sneaky wmd shuffling. tapes of his confidential conferences with own inner circle show him specifically saying that sooner or later someone would attack the US with wmd, but it would not be iraq. apparantly he had already learned his lesson about messing with the empire, but of course it did not matter - iraq was on pnac's list of targets and damn the facts...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 11:30am
On the Iraqi WMDs....I see four possibilities, that seem to defy the "spin".
1. Saddam had no WMDs since the mid-1990s...which means that the Clinton Administration was "lying" (in the same sense as Bush "was"), when they were still claiming he did upto January 2001.
2. Saddam HAD WMDs, but destroyed them on Jaunary 21, 2001 (Bush's inaugural) so that Bush would lie about him having them?!?!?!
or 3. Saddam STILL had WMDs upto the invasion of Iraq, but that means that Bush didn't lie about Iraq having WMDs.
Am I missing a fourth?
Posted by Mask at 03/17/2006 @ 11:53am
yeah...
kicks are for trids
Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 11:58am
re wmd: the intelligence before the war was wishy washy. maybe, maybe not. but the intelligence on whether saddam and his possible wmd were any immediate threat to the us was not wishy washy. there was definitely no immediate threat to us.
we did not take the plenty of time we had--to make a plan. would it have made a difference if we put in a lot more troops at the onset? who knows! because we didn't take the plenty of time we had to make a plan.
that's the point about wmd.
stupid reckless gay-but-still-in-the-closet cowboy bullshit
Posted by loveloki at 03/17/2006 @ 11:59am
lindsey graham was on tv last night. before the 90 seconds i could stand watching him had passed, he admitted numerous "mistakes" as he called them regarding our involvement with iraq. one of our mistakes, he said, was underestimating the strife beneath the surface in iraq.
Posted by loveloki at 03/17/2006 @ 12:08pm
wow, we are a big bumbling incompetant idiot empire.
Posted by loveloki at 03/17/2006 @ 12:09pm
sorry, that's incompetent, unable to do what is required.
Posted by loveloki at 03/17/2006 @ 12:11pm
For the pertinent update on conditions in Iraq go see MSN Seems that in most areas Iraq is in worse shape than before the war....but I suppose those involved in the the daily random killings have the satisfaction to die free! (But is that really a consolation?)
Saddaam was indeed an insane murderous despot....but his country at least functioned, after a fashion. I am not saying he should still be there (before the nut jobs start calling me an "Islamofascist" / terrorist sympathizer) but maybe three religous factions of Islam need a "bit of the stick" to co-exist. We obviously do not understand them. I think we have proved that very plainly....
Posted by leftofcenter at 03/17/2006 @ 12:20pm
On the intelligence of Mask, I see four possibilities:
1) Mask is a paid operative of the Republican party whose job is to harass the Nation blogs with total bs.
2) Mask is an unpaid operative of the Republican part whose hobby is to harass the Nation blogs with total bs.
3) Mask is a complete and total idiot.
Am I missing a fourth?
Posted by orwell2005 at 03/17/2006 @ 12:24pm
what we need in Iraq is a peace process instead of a war process. that's where it starts. this mis-administration is incapable, they should be dismissed, read impeached
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 12:26pm
Not that it prevents them from conducting their ongoing attacks on the civilian population of Iraq, which they continue to make our family members (or, "the troops", as they're called) accessory to the fact and which spring merrily forward today.
The Nazis who lead this country-- and by the way, it's taken me a long time to use that term, but after several years consideration, I'm convinced we're just looking at a new form of fascism that doesn't conform in features with the classic definition--- the Nazis who lead this country are going to stand accountable for their crimes, them and their followers, whether they believe it today or ever, I don't care. We'll do our best to keep the public, which is beginning to awake from a long slumber, from hanging them upside down, but these smug bastards are going to stand in the dock for this. They just don't know it yet.
Laughed myself sick when Hussein didn't fall into line in court the other day. What's he got to lose? He's not going to get to tell the whole story. He might as well have it out. After Milosovich, he knows his days are numbered.
Posted by Sweetdaddy at 03/17/2006 @ 12:35pm
Mask -
If the answer is number 1, and Clinton was "lying" - so what? He never went so far with it to invade Iraq. Maybe he knew it was doubtful Hussein had WMD, but wanted Hussein and the world to THINK that was our intelligence to aid a policy of containment. It would not have been an unthinkable strategy.
Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 12:36pm
Here's what no one seems to discuss with regard to the implication that WMDs were in Iraq before the war. Let's use logic.
For a moment, let's take the Bush assumptions: 1) that there were WMDs present, 2) they posed an imminent threat and 3) Saddam is/was madman enough to use them. If all are true, then our "pre-emptive strike" would have caused Saddam to use them, and most probably during the first moments of "Shock and Awe", before they could be destroyed. Where? Well, since there weren't any US targets in Iraq as yet, he'd have had two choices. The most logical choice would have been on the US targets located at our staging grounds for the invasion and/or US warships from which missiles were being launched as well as the planes doing the bombing. However, since our defenses were likely to be prepared for that, a "madman" would probably figure that would be a waste of those weapons. That leaves choice #2... Israel.
I sincerely doubt that Israel would have been agreeable to a US attack of Iraq if everyone really thought there were WMDs under Saddam's control which he would be able to "imminently" use.
The most logical position that Saddam was taking during the prewar WMD inspections was to try to be duplicitous. He probably thought as long as he maintained the appearance of having WMDs, he was less likely to be attacked since any attacker would be afraid he might use what he was potentially suspected of having. I believe he thought that continuing the illusion provided his greatest security from attack. At the end, as the threat of war became very real, he probably felt he couldn't back down because 1) he didn't want to lose face and 2) coming clean that the weapons were gone at that point would have been something the US was not prepared to accept anyway.
Any logic applied to the theory that Saddam and bin Laden had ties only rules out that possibility. Saddam (again out of his own sense of self preservation and maintaining control of his government) was against the kind of clerical government that bin Laden advocates.
Of course, logic is a lost art with modern day mainstream journalists and modern politicians.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 12:43pm
HMAN
Well, that's fine, but rarely heard. I dare say if you go around the blogs and claim that "Bush AND Clinton were lying about Iraqi WMDs"....you'll get a similar attack as I just got from ORWELL.
By the way ORWELL....I deeply apologize for forcing you to witness ....an OPPOSING VIEWPOINT!
Posted by Mask at 03/17/2006 @ 12:46pm
Declassified Truth Posted 3/16/2006
The War On Terror: The government is finally getting around to unloading some of Saddam Hussein's secret documents. A look at just a few pages already leads to some blockbuster revelations.
In the early stages of the war that began three years ago, the U.S. captured thousands of documents from Saddam and his spy agency, the Mukhabarat. It's been widely thought the documents could shed light on why Saddam behaved as he did and how much of a threat his evil regime represented.
Yet, until this week, the documents lay molding in boxes in a government warehouse. Now the first batch is out, and though few in number, they're loaded with information.
Among the enduring myths of those who oppose the war is that Saddam, though murderous when it came to his own people, had no weapons of mass destruction and no terrorist designs outside his own country. Both claims now lie in tatters.
As we've reported several times, a number of former top military officials in Saddam's regime have come forward to admit that, yes, Saddam had WMD, hid them and shipped them out of the country so they couldn't be detected. And he had plans to make more.
Now come more revelations that leave little doubt about Saddam's terrorist intentions. Most intriguing from a document dump Wednesday night is a manual for Saddam's spy service, innocuously listed as CMPC-2003-006430. It makes for interesting reading.
Here, for instance, are the marching orders for Directorate 8, the Mukhabarat's "Technical Affairs" department: "The Eight Directorate is responsible for development of materials needed for covert offensive operations. It contains advanced laboratories for testing and production of weapons, poisons and explosives."
It goes on. Directorate 9, we discover, "is one of the most important directorates in the Mukhabarat. Most of its work is outside Iraq in coordination with other directorates, focusing on operations of sabotage and assassination."
The document also discusses the Mukhabarat's Office 16, set up to train "agents for clandestine operations abroad." The document helpfully adds that "special six-week courses in the use of of terror techniques are provided at a camp in Radwaniyhah."
Got that? Terror techniques.
Even as the media studiously avoid these new documents — just as they avoided 500 hours of Saddam's personal tapes showing his scheming on WMD — it's clear the U.S. did the right thing in invading Iraq and taking out a formative terrorist threat.
Saddam had close ties to al-Qaida. That's not just our opinion, but also that of the 9-11 Commission Report that so many in the media have selectively cited to bolster the case against the war.
As Chairman Thomas Kean said the day the report was released: "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."
As such, we were heartened to see that President Bush on Thursday reaffirmed the U.S. will continue to fight a pre-emptive war on terror — accompanied by news that the U.S. had launched Operation Swarmer, its largest anti-insurgent offensive since 2003.
Polls be damned — that's how a war is fought.
YOU STUPID FUCKING LIBZ ARE SOON GONNA HAVE YOUR PATHETIC PANSEY ASSES HANDED TOO YOU...WHY???BECAUSE YOU WILL BE PROVEN TO BE THE THE LIARS...AS ALL PATRIOTIC AMERICANS ALREADY KNEW
Posted by libzsuk at 03/17/2006 @ 12:53pm
Taking LZ's premise as fact for a moment, the logical extension of that is that al Qaeda has the WMDs in the possession now and has had them since just before the attack on Iraq, so for about 3 years. Explain to me, then, why hasn't al Qaeda used them in the intervening 3 years? If they have them, they'd use them. Again, Israel is the most lieky target. So, explain to me why they haven't been used?
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 1:00pm
Mask: Viewpoints that are divorced from reality are not viewpoints, they are fantasies. If you want to still argue about whether or not Iraq had WMD, go ahead. It only makes you look like a delusional fool. If you want to argue that if Bush was wrong so was Clinton, go ahead. It only makes you look like a partisan delusional fool.
Under your thesis, Clinton and Bush had identical intelligence w.r.t. Iraqi WMD. Yet, they came to far different conclusions as to the appropriate actions. Only Bush decided to invade and occupy Iraq. This decision has led directly to death and destruction affecting hundreds of thousands, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, and the demise of American prestige around the globe.
Posted by orwell2005 at 03/17/2006 @ 1:08pm
Back in the post-invasion good old days when an unarmed American could still go outside, a friend of mine spent a year in Iraq working with the Army Corps of Engineers. According to the scuttlebutt he heard, Saddam was so isolated that his weapons experts could get away with pretending his cladestine programs were still operating years after they'd run out of money. It was a dangerous game, as they'd be executed if they told the truth.
As LENNONIST pointed out, such a tactic is equally useful to American politicians.
Based on 1) absence of weapons found, 2) lack of weapons usage, and 3) the usefulness of lying about it ...
I'd say anybody who thinks Saddam had WMD at the time of invasion is completely crazy.
Posted by MyParadigm at 03/17/2006 @ 1:08pm
I wrote that before LIBS checked in. So may I add, if all this irrefutable proof of the rightness of this war has been there all along, why didn't the authorities produce it long ago in order to bolster their case?
In any event, weapons is weapons and they're always available to whoever can pay. The real issue is the situation on the ground over there, and the apparent inability of America under Bush's leadership to do anything about it.
Posted by MyParadigm at 03/17/2006 @ 1:14pm
In any event, weapons is weapons and they're always available to whoever can pay.
osted by MYPARADIGM 03/17/2006 @ 1:14pm
And as we learned in the DP World ports deal, DP World has always been willing to permit shipments of materials and technology useful to WMDs to anyone using one of their ports.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 1:17pm
And of course the Bush Administration is so committed to preventing the possibility of a WMD attack on our home shores that it was ready to give six of our ports to these known WMD proliferators.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 1:24pm
The administration would have already leaked or publicized any irrefutable proof that Saddam had WMDs or conspired with bin Laden.
Posted by breasonable at 03/17/2006 @ 1:26pm
Are you kidding? They'd be screaming it from the rooftops!
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 1:29pm
The administration would have already leaked or publicized any irrefutable proof that Saddam had WMDs or conspired with bin Laden.
Posted by BREASONABLE 03/17/2006 @ 1:26pm
Yup, immediately after 9/11, Rummy was ordering people to find the link.
Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 1:35pm
The only reason they didn't - aside from the fact that there's no there there - is that BushCo never releases any information until they absolutely have to, and until recently public opinion was on their side. And now it's too late. Can you say arrogant and incompetent?
Posted by MyParadigm at 03/17/2006 @ 1:39pm
Posted by ORWELL2005 03/17/2006 @ 1:08pm | ignore this person
Aside from knee-jerk reactionism, not really sure if you're saying anything. I wasn't arguing that "Bush invaded Iraq and Clinton didn't".....I was noting that it is said "Bush lied about WMDs" and yet NOT said that "Clinton lied about WMDs", but no logical conclusion seems to be reached to prove both.
Like HMAN said....one LOGICAL answer is...BOTH lied about them. Not saying that's true, but it IS more realistic than "One lied when he said ****, and the other told the truth when he said **** (identical statements)".
And YOUR defense of Clinton on this matter merely makes YOU look like a "delusional partisan fool"....as I'm not defending Bush, merely asking the logic behind an attack on him, but not Clinton.
Posted by Mask at 03/17/2006 @ 1:40pm
I am glad that Bill Clinton is still the President.
However the disaster in Iraq is the 100% sole property of George Bush, the liar.
Posted by jchrist at 03/17/2006 @ 1:47pm
"And of course the Bush Administration is so committed to preventing the possibility of a WMD attack on our home shores that it was ready to give six of our ports to these known WMD proliferators."
LIBERAL RACIAL PROFILING
Posted by libzsuk at 03/17/2006 @ 1:50pm
I do not want to appear as if I am defending Clinton for anything he may have said or not said, as I have no particular interest in defnding him. Nor do I want anyone to take this as my authoritative argument as what did or did not occur. Mask has asked for a "logical" explanation on the reasons behind lying about WMDs being in Iraq. I simply offer this as a possible scenario.
Clinton knew it wasn't possible to prove WMDs were there because the IAEA had not yet found any. He also knew it was impossible to prove they were not there as the IAEA had not made that determination yet, either. During Clinton's Presidency, it was generally accepted by nearly the entire international community felt that the sanctions had sufficiently contained Saddam's WMD aspirations, and he did not have a way to deliver any WMDs on any foreign targets. Furthermore, Iran was considered the greater geopolitical threat in the region, and it was also conventional wisdom prior to Bush's accension to the Presidency that one needed a stable Iraq in the region as a balance to Iran and that any destabilization of Iraq would only prove to strengthen Iran and enhance it's influence in the region. Also, Clinton was not apt to attack Iraq without absolute of an actual imminent threat, and none existed. Hence, perhaps Clinton felt it was more prudent to avoid changing the geopolitical balance vis-a-vis Iraq so as not to elevate Iran to a position of greater influence and strength in the region. As it turns out, if that was his position, he was right as we can see from the current state of affairs in Iraq, Iran and the whole region.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 1:55pm
IN OTHER WORDS...B.J. CLINTON AND HIS LOVELY WIFE HILLARY ROTTEN WERE NOT INTO TACKLING TOUGH JOBS JUST INTERNS
Posted by libzsuk at 03/17/2006 @ 2:01pm
I wish Bill Clinton was still president, instead of the idiot George Bush.
The disaster in Iraq, the cake walk, the victory, the Democracy George Bush built, the liberation of the Iraqi people, it all belongs to George Bush.
The same people who were 100% right about exactly how bad this Iraq mess would be - oh you Conservatives called us traitors - but we were right and you were wrong.
Iraq is 100% as bad as we said it would be, it accomplished 0% - liberals called that right on the mark, Conservatives said giving chemical and biological weapons to Saddam Hussein to kill Iranians with - was a good idea, and they were wrong, they were stupid, they were un-patriotic.
Posted by jchrist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:11pm
The same people who were 100% correct about how bad Iraq would be, how little it would accomplish, how much it would backfire,
are also 100% correct about how bad it would be if George Bush decides to attack Iran - or help Israel attack Iran.
We intelligent people - not the idiots who support George Bush, who said Iraq would be easy and accomplish a whole lot, are now saying: if America attacks Iran, the consequences will make Iraq look like nothing.
Listen to the people who are always right, stop listening to the people who always tell lies.
Posted by jchrist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:15pm
Mask: as I'm not defending Bush
Right. You are not defending Bush. Your brain is clearly incapable of mounting a meaningful defense. And besides, Bush's policies are indefensible, as clearly demonstrated by their results.
Mask: merely asking the logic behind an attack on him Which is certainly a far more important question than the logic behind an illegal, unprovoked attack on Iraq that has left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of billions squandered.
Oh, and by the way, the original post and the comments that precede yours do NOT mention Bush nor do they accuse him of lying. So why are you so defensive?
Posted by orwell2005 at 03/17/2006 @ 2:25pm
Mask: as I'm not defending Bush
Right. You are not defending Bush. Your brain is clearly incapable of mounting a meaningful defense. And besides, Bush's policies are indefensible, as clearly demonstrated by their results.
Mask: merely asking the logic behind an attack on him
Which is certainly a far more important question than the logic behind an illegal, unprovoked attack on Iraq that has left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of billions squandered.
Oh, and by the way, the original post and the comments that precede yours do NOT mention Bush nor do they accuse him of lying. So why are you so defensive?
Posted by orwell2005 at 03/17/2006 @ 2:25pm
Is the Dubai ports deal doomed? By MICHAEL DUFFY
Monday, March 6, 2006; Posted: 2:38 p.m. EST (19:38 GMT)
GOP lawmakers raised new questions about the ports deal, alleging that the UAE is too eaily infiltrated by terrorists and asking the Administration to explain whether U.S. terminal-operating companies could bid on UAE terminal work.
This was from a Times Magazine article and posted one CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/06/dubai.ports.tm/index.html
Key questions about the Dubai port deal
Monday, March 6, 2006; Posted: 8:15 p.m. EST (01:15 GMT)
Many lawmakers argue that allowing a foreign-owned company, particularly a company owned by the UAE, undermines national security. They note that two of the 9/11 hijackers came from the UAE and that they drew funding from Dubai banks before the attack. The UAE also was one of only three nations to recognize the Taliban's regime in Afghanistan.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/06/dubai.ports.qa/index.html
Rep. Peter King of New York, a Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also charges that CFIUS did not conduct a thorough investigation into any terrorist ties DP World may have.
GOP lawmakers propose compromises on ports White House working 'to keep this moving forward'
Tuesday, March 7, 2006; Posted: 6:50 p.m. EST (23:50 GMT)
Critics of the deal have pointed out that two of the September 11, 2001, hijackers came from the UAE, and that funding for the attacks was funneled through banks in Dubai, a major Persian Gulf financial center.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/07/port.security.1849/index.html
Sunday, March 5, 2006 2:35 p.m. EST
The California Republican reminded the "This Week" audience a second time of the host's Clinton connection, telling Stephanopoulos: "I don't think President Clinton - your old boss - knows the facts of the transshipments that take place through Dubai, sending nuclear components to all parts of the world - especially to people who don't like America."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/5/143719.shtml?s=ic
With regard to the contention that DP World ships nuclear components, all my sources on this issue were Republicans.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:29pm
Mary, you're off topic.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:33pm
Here....maybe THIS will make it "all better" for ORWELL et al
Bush lied about Saddam having WMDs.....and so did Clinton. Bush invaded Iraq over his lie, Clinton did not.
There....everybody happy now? Okay...now let's back up a bit.
Why do we continually hear that the NUMEROUS quotes by Clinton Administration officials on Saddam's WMDs (easy to Google) were "true"......(and NO LENNONIST not "everybody" was saying Iraq was "mostly harmless" as far as WMDs were going...maybe "the international community", but not American Democrats)....but identical claims by Bush were "lies to get us into war"?
Answer....partisan politics. If Clinton told the truth about Iraqi WMDs, Bush did....if Bush lied about Iraqi WMDs, then Clinton did.
But to "split them up" was a cheap tactic by Democratic partisans who wanted Bush to be "evil" (and maybe he is) and Clinton to be "good and honest" (and maybe HE is).
And THAT was my only point.
Posted by Mask at 03/17/2006 @ 2:40pm
I didn't say everyone, I said nearly all of the international community.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:43pm
And I said I am not offering a defense for Clinton. I have no interest in defending him.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:43pm
Mask: The "lie" was that Dear Leader and his minions claimed that Iraq posed a grave and gathering threat to the US that necessitated our invasion and occupation.
Posted by orwell2005 at 03/17/2006 @ 2:44pm
However, mask, using your argument, and for your sake I'll accept it, then both did lie. That means, Clinton did not lead us into an illegal war based on lies but Bush did.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:44pm
Well, I finally found out where to post my comment! Which is: In refenence to mr. mask. He could not get it in any circumstance. As my mother used to say to me: "There are none so blind as those who will not see." But, Al Capp, whom I did not really admire always had L'l Abner say in response to the comment 'As any fool can plainly see' "I see." Mr. Mask Could take the place of L'll Abner. He should remove his mask and try hiding behind some common sense. I dare say he would then change his mind about most of what has occured in the past six years. He might even recover from his blindness.
I wELL, I finally found out where to post my comment!
Posted by atruedem at 03/17/2006 @ 2:52pm
And THAT was my only point.
Posted by MASK 03/17/2006 @ 2:40pm
I thought your point was that even after claming he would bring honor and dignity back to the oval office, ol' Gee Dubya is in reality even sleazier than Clinton.
And our current fearless leader even ran a campaign on those lies.
Clinton at least made his up as he went along
I guess the difference between my favorite president and Ol Gee Dubya is the same difference between an impassioned snap shooter and a twisted serial killer
Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 2:52pm
Will - not only does it make Bush sleazier, carrying Mask's point to it's logical extension, it makes Bush a war criminal.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 2:54pm
Mask, there are certainly quotes from the Clinton era, many by Democrats and Clinton himself and some of which are quite hawkish, about the dangers of allowing Saddam to develop WMD. But the whole "we have to do something decisive about this, and soon" is a BushCo invention that never was supported by any verifiable facts.
It's incumbent upon an incumbent to talk the talk, if you'll pardon the expression. What matters is the actions that are taken. Clinton held the rudder steady. Bush went over a waterfall.
Yes, there are rhetorical similarities. But when Bush claimed that Iraq posed an imminent threat and action was required, he lied. Lied lied lied lied lied. And he's still lying. Get it straight.
Posted by MyParadigm at 03/17/2006 @ 2:57pm
Posted by LENNONIST 03/17/2006 @ 2:54pm
Your right. Mask is arguing that Bush lied us into a war.
Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 2:58pm
I know! Thank you so very much, Mask, for proving our point for us! :)
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:00pm
Lennonist:
Thank you for your great posts on this subject.
MASK:
Who "splits them up?" You keep making it seem as if the blanket response from the left when given the standard cut-and-paste of every Clinton, Gore, Albright quote on Iraq in the 90's is "Clinto was telling the truth." Who the hell has said that? Most say what I do, who cares? Clinton may have had objectives for "lying" - Iraq was certainly not a friend to the U.S.; maybe it was puffing, maybe it was to appease the PNAC types begging for an invasion, maybe it was a calculated strategy to keep up policies of containment. Whether what he knew privately was different from what he said publically is irrelevant because he did not act on it like Bush did. Plain and simple.
Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 3:02pm
The war in Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terrorism. Our presence in Iraq now is that of aiding the Shia in cleansing Iraq of Sunnis.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:03pm
HMAN
Well, that's fine, but rarely heard. I dare say if you go around the blogs and claim that "Bush AND Clinton were lying about Iraqi WMDs"....you'll get a similar attack as I just got from ORWELL.
By the way ORWELL....I deeply apologize for forcing you to witness ....an OPPOSING VIEWPOINT!
Posted by MASK 03/17/2006 @ 12:46am | ignore this person
Mask, we all know that you use "opposing viewpoints" on this blog to be oppositional and a pain-in-the-ass, far more than you use them because they belong to you or you have convictions and believe in them.
You just like to start and facilitate arguments, for the sheer joy of arguing, and we all know it.
Just own up to it, to who and what you are here, and you'll receive more discourse instead of hostile opposition--
No wait, you wouldn't want that. You'd be bored silly.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:07pm
Posted by LENNONIST 03/17/2006 @ 12:43am
As always with your posts, Lennon - logic prevails.
Keep 'em coming.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:08pm
What is of great irony here is, Condi is promoting the idea that Iran is assisting the insurgency. However, the insurgency is comprised of Sunnis, not Shia. The Shia are more closely allied with Iran, yet, it is the Shia in Iraq and the Shia government of Iraq that our troops and our Administration are supporting. The Bush Administration is propping up a government that is only going to turn on us as soon as we leave.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:09pm
Hey New Dawn, great to see you! Thank you for your kind remarks.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:10pm
Posted by LIBZSUK 03/17/2006 @ 12:53am
Fifteen paragraphs of tripe pasted from a neocon wesite, followed by one CAPITALIZED paragraph of ranting, foaming at the mouth profanity.
Libz - I give in. You're right. People just like you should absolutely be running the country.
We'll even let you keep your straitjacket as a parting gift.
What a joke!
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:11pm
The mess in Iraq is going to turn out just the same as when Reqagan and Bush I gave aid, money and arms to bin Laden againist the Russians.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:11pm
Libz - I give in. You're right. People just like you should absolutely be running the country.
We'll even let you keep your straitjacket as a parting gift.
What a joke!
Posted by NEW DAWN 03/17/2006 @ 3:11pm
Actually, New Dawn, they ARE running the country...
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:16pm
LENNONIST 03/17/2006 @ 3:09pm
Thank you for the latest Condi news. Her debacle last month where she tried to convince Arab states to boycott Hamas and they told her to take a hike in her stylish high heeled boots went widely unreported. I wonder if these are Rove's ideas. She's gotta be smarter than that.
Posted by MyParadigm at 03/17/2006 @ 3:17pm
"And of course the Bush Administration is so committed to preventing the possibility of a WMD attack on our home shores that it was ready to give six of our ports to these known WMD proliferators."
LIBERAL RACIAL PROFILING
Posted by LIBZSUK 03/17/2006 @ 1:50pm | ignore this person
Republican attack langauge, perpetrated against patriots who exercise their American DUTY to dissent and hold their leaders accountable.
Typical from you in particular, Libz, and from your "side" in general.
Murtha, McCain, Cleland, and Kerry are all cowards who never actualy served their country, either, right?
No, wait, that's your fearless leader, isn't it?
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:18pm
Yeah, that's another good one. The Bush Administration, and especially Condi, run around saying that democracy will be the answer in the Middle East. When they see the first example of it in action, they decide to punsih those exercising their free will and political voice. I am so glad that the Administration is such a staunch supporter of democracy in action.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:20pm
Yeah, that's another good one. The Bush Administration, and especially Condi, run around saying that democracy will be the answer in the Middle East. When they see the first example of it in action, they decide to punsih those exercising their free will and political voice. I am so glad that the Administration is such a staunch supporter of democracy in action.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:20pm
IN OTHER WORDS...B.J. CLINTON AND HIS LOVELY WIFE HILLARY ROTTEN WERE NOT INTO TACKLING TOUGH JOBS JUST INTERNS
Posted by LIBZSUK 03/17/2006 @ 2:01pm | ignore this person
Wow, if that's all you got out of Lennonist's stellar post before yours, you are completely our of touch with reality, and fast headed towards becoming the only other person on my iggy list besides Rese.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:21pm
Is that fiddle music I hear? Nero my god to thee? NEWSFLASH!! The USS United States has just been gashed stem to stern by an Iraq-berg while blindly plowing full-throttle through the uncharted waters of global empire.
But seriously folks, there's one embarassing little factoid that the US gov't, the US media and you all have studiously avoided. Saddam got what biological/chemical WMD's he had with the explicit approval and help from... The USA!!! That's why Bush II et al were so sure they could MAKE THE MEDIA CASE the WMD's still existed... Rummy told Bush II that's what the handshake was about. As long as Saddam only used them against Kurds and Iranians, all was fine with the world... from a US perspective. As an aside, if Saddam is executed for using WMD's against the Kurds, should those who helped him get those WMD's share his sentence?... wanna take that handshake back Rummy?
Posted by NOYB at 03/17/2006 @ 3:26pm
Posted by MASK 03/17/2006 @ 2:40pm | ignore this person
Mask, if Clinton were still president (which he isn't - still not sure if you know that or not)...
And the Iraq debacle (as well as every other horrific "miscalculation and execution" of this misadminstration were identical, I would be howling from the rooftops for his head with every bit as muich fervor as I do for Bush's.
Just knock it off with the irrelevant crap and catch up with the news of the day.
Nothing William Jefferson Clinton ever did or does, will ever change who George Walker Bush was or is.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:27pm
Maasch
Don't you ever grow tired of being Libzsux? And we don't respect your John Maasch posts either.
Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 3:27pm
Maybe if Bush was getting blow jobs in the White House, he wouldn't have any frustrations that he'd need to take out on other countries?
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:30pm
Posted by LENNONIST 03/17/2006 @ 3:30pm
Why do you think Jeff Gannon was stopping by late at night? And you don't think ol' Gee Dubya really choked on a pretzel do you?
Posted by Will C. at 03/17/2006 @ 3:32pm
LibZ
In recent interviews (Meet the Press last week) it was laid out that Sadaam was lying about WMDs to keep Iran (and others) at bay. makes perfect sense if you turn your brain on. He didn't even tell his own generals until US hardware was rolling up the roads to Bahgdad.
As noted in many posts upthread, if they had them, they would have used them. After all, he used them on his own people....no reason to spare US troops invading his country.
Posted by leftofcenter at 03/17/2006 @ 3:33pm
Posted by NOYB 03/17/2006 @ 3:26pm | ignore this person
Fanfreakingtastic post, Noyb.
History can be a bitch, eh? Especially when it can be verified on film.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:33pm
Why do you think Jeff Gannon was stopping by late at night? And you don't think ol' Gee Dubya really choked on a pretzel do you?
Posted by WILL C. 03/17/2006 @ 3:32pm | ignore this person
Is this that old Rod Stewart/stomach pump myth recycled?
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:34pm
Hey, Will, which end of a pretzel is up? Oh, I guess I have to ask Gee Dubya...
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:34pm
Now, Lennon, you're growing awfully snarky...
I thought you were a peacenik?
Hee, hee, hee...
Running out of patience and ready to throw a couple of rocks like some of the rest of us?
:)
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 3:35pm
Our great right wing fed arms, munitions, money and advice to bin Laden against the Russians only to have them all be turned back on us. They fed WMDs and more to Saddam only to then decide they had to go attack their former ally against Iran. Now, they are feeding the Shia in Iraq with more of the same, and once we leave, they'll likely share with Iran and form another alliance against us. Is there no end to the logic of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, & Rice et. al.?
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:38pm
Oh, I can never refuse to jump on a bad pun when one is staring me in the face... :) But it's all meant as harmless fun.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:39pm
LENNONIST 03/17/2006 @ 3:38pm
You're being pessimistic. We'll always have Eritrea, and the other colossi from Coalition of the Willing.
Posted by MyParadigm at 03/17/2006 @ 3:44pm
Here's what concerns me. Instead of trying to figure out how to be electible, the Democrats need to come up with a viable exit strategy. If they could do that, they'd sweep the GOP out of office.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:46pm
how about apologizing to the world, admitting we were wrong and asking for help...
Posted by loveloki at 03/17/2006 @ 3:48pm
And since this has morphed into a "which was the bigger liar, Clinton or Bush" debate.
A pox on both their parties. The US (and it's citizens, wittingly or not) have been jackbooting around the world high on Manifest Destiny and corporate colonization for so long they think its normal. Remind us again how long US troops have been in the Philippines and why? Ah yes, defending US "interests". I'm sure Philippinos were as thankful of the various US-sponsored regimes as the Iraqis were of Saddam.
Wake up all of you... the rest of the world has seen a constant string of US Emperors with no clothes. We just wonder why you keep on electing these clowns and allowing their corporate cabals to destroy your country's democratic ideals and integrity worldwide. Read your Constitution and Bill of Rights and make the bastards stick to it at home and abroad. At least you have (had?) that to fall back on. Most of the rest of world the just wishes it did. The loss of your civil rights and economic strength is the true tragedy of 9/11 and the subsequent BushCo shenanigans.
Posted by NOYB at 03/17/2006 @ 3:51pm
Posted by NEW DAWN 03/17/2006 @ 3:07pm | ignore this person
NEW DAWN, again, I apologize most insincerely for not understanding what a blog like this one on "The Nation" is all about......I was under SOME WACKY impression that hearing alternative viewpoints was a "good" thing on them; while obviously, as you seem to indicate, the point of it is for everybody to sit around, talk about what slime Bush and Republicans are, and slap high-fives at how "we're the REAL majority".
Again...my bad.
Posted by Mask at 03/17/2006 @ 3:54pm
How about adding to that, and as a means of putting an end to civil war, agreeing to allow the Kurds their preference, splitting Iraq up into three countres: Shia, Kurds and Sunnis each getting a place of their own. That kinda puts an end to the need for civil war. How about making sure the Iraqi people get to do the work of rebuilding their country (countries if it is three) so that we jump start an economy there and give the people an income and some prosperity. How about trusting that the Iraqi people aren't little children who have to be taught how to take care of their own needs and let them make their own decisions. How about offering aid to help pay for reconstruction since it was our bombs that destroyed their country.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:56pm
But Mask, all your points only served to prove that Bush falsified info to drag us into an illegal war.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 3:59pm
Couple of points of clarification for WILL and the rest...
1. Voted for Clinton....twice.
2. Voted for Kerry in 2004 (yes, yes, that means I voted for Bush in 2000!)
3. Was on the bandwagon for Iraq....at the same rate and "gullibility" as Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, and most of the Democrats (as well as most Americans in general).
4. I don't think Bush "lied us into a war to enrich his Halliburton buddies by saying the same things that Clinton was lying about in the 1990s"....I think he STUPIDLY thought he could make-over Iraq in a "new model" of democracy.
5. As noted on Peter Rothberg's thread.....the failure of Iraq DOES have an upside and down-side for BOTH sides....True, no more "American imperialism, PNAC, neo-cons" on the Right....but guess what guys, all your talk about how we "shouldn't invade countries that don't attack us" or "countries that pose no WMDs threat" or "invasions with no clear exit strategy"....
can get applied to YOUR wars too.....????......Darfur, for example?
Again, MY ONLY point before was....why was Clinton "telling the truth" about Iraqi WMDs when he said "X" in 1999...and Bush "lying his moron fascist fake cowboy ass off" when he said "X" in 2002?
Posted by Mask at 03/17/2006 @ 4:00pm
Hey, don't place any wars on my shoulders. I'm antiwar... all of 'em.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:02pm
Now ... don't get all pouty MASK.
We still want you to stick around.
Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 4:03pm
No one here has said Clinton was telling the truth. We don't know. We do know that in the nearly three years leading up to Bush's invasion of Iraq after Clinton had left office, Saddam had time to finish the job of dismantling his WMD cache and programs. We don't know if he did it before Clinton left office or not, but there was plenty of time between when Bush was elected and when he invaded to have finished the job. Ergo, it remains possible that Clinton wasn't lying.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:05pm
MASK:
AGAIN, WHO SAID THAT CLINTON WAS TELLING THE TRUTH?!?!?!
Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 4:05pm
Besides, Clinton lied about "having sex with that girl", so he may have lied about Iraq. So what? He didn't lead us into war over lies. Bush did that.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:07pm
NEW DAWN, again, I apologize most insincerely for not understanding what a blog like this one on "The Nation" is all about......I was under SOME WACKY impression that hearing alternative viewpoints was a "good" thing on them; while obviously, as you seem to indicate, the point of it is for everybody to sit around, talk about what slime Bush and Republicans are, and slap high-fives at how "we're the REAL majority".
Again...my bad.
Posted by MASK 03/17/2006 @ 3:54pm
Oh, poor picked-on Mask, is that the next stance you'll hide behind? So misunderstood.
Credit for the "apologize most insincerely" line. Clever. Nice job.
So now, find me one spot in any of my posts where I "seem to indicate" that the point of [blogging here] is for "everybody to sit around and talk about what slime Bush and Republicans are"
- Bush and MANY POLITICIANS, Mask, (and I and many others say so on these boards - both sides) are slime, but you don't have to agree, and neither does anyone else on this board. Many of my posts are about the right to dissent and how much I support it as an American obligation and even duty. You're welcome to disagree anywhere, fellow American, on this board or otherwise, and I've never said differently. I just said you argue for the sake of arguing and to be a pain in the ass.
And this about how I advocate "[slapping] high-fives..."
I am not a professional basketball player, Mask. I don't "high-five" anybody, anywhere, anytime. I do salute Will for humor value (because the whole shot-in-the-face thing almsot made me pee myself laughing), and give kudos to Redbird, Lennonist, and many others for well-thought-out, logical, rational posts as a whole, but I don't "high-five", and certainly never just because someone agrees with me. I vehemently oppose many things about Liberty for instance, but I will freely acknowledge that he's written a few very thought-provoking and well-written posts.
I claimed I'm part of some "REAL majority"? When was that?
I'm part of quite a few majorities. Which one did you interpret me to be adhering to again, specifically? Dem? Uh-uh. Liberal? Proudly. Care to elaborate on your insinuation?
Yes, your bad, so please feel free to correct yourself.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 4:08pm
Lennonist posts:
"How about adding to that, and as a means of putting an end to civil war, agreeing to allow the Kurds their preference, splitting Iraq up into three countres: Shia, Kurds and Sunnis each getting a place of their own. That kinda puts an end to the need for civil war."
Lennon, if we can't get Israel and Palestine squared away, can we realistically expect do so with this three-way country split in Iraq?
I love your idea, and have often proposed it myself in dinner conversation with friends and peers, but we always come to that impasse.
What do you think?
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 4:10pm
Hey, Mask - little interjection here.
I'm just passionately yapping politics (and the occasional, okay, prevalent, personal tweak of the nose), with all of the requisite sniping and snarking. I sincerely mean you no harm.
Just FYI, if you care.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 4:13pm
I totally agree. The only way to ultimately bring peace, freedom and understanding to the region is to solve the Israeli-Palestinian situation. We aren't going to solve it by putting our heads in the ground and hoping that by ignoring the will of the Palestinians was exercised by Hamas. I would think that, by bringing Hamas into the discussion, the negotiations will be longer and more difficult, but if an agreement can be reached by the most hardline factions, it will be a lasting peace.
I have always thought this about Palestine... The UN forced the creation of the state of Israel. That was the result of a few factors, not the least of which was the feeling of a moral responsibility for the Halocast. Well, there should also be a feeling of moral responsibility on the part of the international community for the plight of the Palestinians. If I were to impose my view, it would be that Israel be forced to return to the pre six day war borders. Jerusalem (which is one of the trickiest issues) would not be a Palestinian city, nor would it be part of Israel. I would favor making Jerusalem an international city, kind of like the Vatican.
But, I don't live there and am neither Israeli nor Palestinian, so I would never impose my view on anyone. However, I think that would provide a framework that is better than Bush's roadmap for beginning negotiations. One thing though, I do agree that both Israel and the newly formed Palestinian state would have to agree to recognize the right of the other to exist.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:19pm
Ooops, that by ignoring the will of the Palestinian people was expressed in their election of Hamas. Bad typing...
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:21pm
Mask posts:
3. Was on the bandwagon for Iraq....at the same rate and "gullibility" as Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, and most of the Democrats (as well as most Americans in general).
Some of us were not that gullible and were yelling "liar" at the TV set throughout the ramping-up-for-war. They started dropping bombs on my lady's birthday, and my lady and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes. We knew it was wrong. No offense, Mask, but some of us knew it was wrong at the outset. And I'm not anti-war. There are times when it's necessary. Sorry, Lennon.
4. I don't think Bush "lied us into a war to enrich his Halliburton buddies by saying the same things that Clinton was lying about in the 1990s"....I think he STUPIDLY thought he could make-over Iraq in a "new model" of democracy.
Bush may believe what you say, but the PNAC agenda and its proponents surrounding and supporting him are a real and present danger. Look at the administration, the appointees, the big picture, the clear plan. No conspiracy theories or partisanship need apply, just a real and rational look at the evidence at hand.
"Again, MY ONLY point before was....why was Clinton "telling the truth" about Iraqi WMDs when he said "X" in 1999...and Bush "lying his moron fascist fake cowboy ass off" when he said "X" in 2002?"
Propaganda? Partisanship? Does it matter?
The label doesn't change the product any more than a book's cover discloses its contents.
And we got sold a bum product, Mask.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 4:23pm
You don't have to be sorry for expressing a pragmatic view about war, New Dawn. I realize that my view is that of an idealist. I respect your view, as I know you respect mine, and we can agree to differ without resorting to epithets and slurs. :) I don't feel the need to be right. I just feel the need to know that I have the liberty to express my opinions. I enjoy discussing ideas with people who like to discuss them. I've learned to just pay no attention to people who feel the need to be right so much that they will resort to shouting down and/or slinging irrelevant epithets at those who disagree.
By the way, I too saw through the bs in the run up to the war in Iraq, and I sat and cried as I watched "Shock and Awe".
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:29pm
"splitting Iraq up into three countres: Shia, Kurds and Sunnis each getting a place of their own."
HELLO people, doesn't anyone read the crap that I keep posting so voluminously? THE OIL IS NOT EVENLY DISTRIBUTED.dividing the country into the sectarian zones will not work, as the Sunni would get little or no oil.
also remember the Sunni had 50 years of getting ALL the oil money, do you think they will settle for NOTHING? or even 20%? the Sunni are the former gov't of Iraq, complete with military, secret police etc,
they are holding 140,000 of the world's best equipped troops at bay.
the Shia and the Kurds for that matter had half a century to rise up and free themselves of the Baathists. they tried a few times with disastrous results.
NO, the only thing propping up the Shia "gov't" is the american troops. remember Vietnam folks, as soon as we left, Ho Chi Minh united the country, by force. that's the way it was and that's the way it is.
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 4:31pm
Posted by LENNONIST 03/17/2006 @ 4:19pm | ignore this person
I just fear that the "Vatican City" idea would never fly, because the fundamentalists on all sides would never allow it. It is just such a "specific generality" (how's that for an oxymoron?) that prevents solutions beneficial to all.
And is it our business to decide that for them, anyway? Especially through coercion or outright violence?
Long before the oil trade, the region has been plagued by sectarian violence and western intervention for decades, for centuries, for longer than our country has existed. I'm all for trying to help out around the world and be a model, for us to be, as someone once said, "a shining city on the hill" or some such thing, who was that... Hmm...
But we sure can't do it by force.
I know we agree on that, too.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 4:37pm
Lennon, you are uninformed. the Balfour declaration, which promised the jews a homeland in Palestine preceded the holocaust by 40 years. I will admit that sympathy for the jews' destruction at the hands of the Nazis helped in recognizing Israel.
Israel, like this country is split between the liberals who want to come to a rapproachment with the "Palestinians" and the right wing who wants a military solution. add to this the rabid right wing settlers, many of them from the US originally, who were encouraged to settle in the west bank by a succession of Israeli gov'ts, and here we are.
here's a little story about how Israel came to be
http://www.mideastweb.org/mebalfour.htm
I didn't read the whole thing so I don't know what political point of view is represented, but the facts are presumably there
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 4:40pm
I don't really disagree with your post Johannsrolf. I am not suggesting my idea is a "viable" exit plan. It's my idea. The right will never see my idea as being a viable exit strategy and that kind of plan will not get Democrats elected. An additional reason is that the Shia led nation would probably ebd up allied with Iran, and that isn't good either. I know that and know that is also a huge reason why my idea isn't a viable exit strategy. That's why I am saying that a viable exit strategy needs to be presented.
However, let me make another point with regard to the financial issue you presented. The world is going to have to ween itself off oil use, the sooner the better if we want the world to continue to be habitable. If your contention is that the Kurds and Shia will end up dependent on oil money for their economies, they will face a disaster when the world is weened off oil as it eventually has to be. The Sunni secor, under my idea would at least be building an economy that would have a chance to be viable in a post oil dependent world.
So, we are still back at, someone needs a viable strategy that will get us out, not create a terrorist state, not push the country towards Iran, and still somehow avoid a Sunni cleansing that is apt to occur once we do leave.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:44pm
Bush "lying his moron fascist fake cowboy ass off" when he said "X" in 2002?
Posted by MASK 03/17/2006 @ 4:00pm | ignore this person
Mask, Bush would still be a "moron fascist fake cowboy" even if he didn't lie.
:)
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 4:47pm
Johannesrolf, again, I said it was one of the factors, and not the least factor, but I didn't say it was the only factor and I admitted there are a lot of factors. I also suggested my idea was just a place to start from, not an end in and of itself.
You point about the history of conflict in the region being ages old. Apparently as old as people have lived in the region. I don't know what answer you are proffering. But if you are saying this conflict can never be resolvedshort of us getting out of the way and letting them fight it out, then the result will be disastrous for the whole world.
New Dawn, I agree, I don't think the US or the UN should impose any solution on anyone. I think I added that to the end of my post.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:49pm
Everyone, please remember, I am admittedly an idealist and utopianist. I realize that means I am not a pragmatist.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 4:53pm
thank heaven - a former student of mine just got back from iraq, came to visit, but did not have much time...said he has lots to talk about, wants to talk... refused the 15 grand to go back...should be interesting
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 4:57pm
Nobody's challenging you, Lennon, I was just continuing the conversation to its next logical consideration.
Peace!
I'm outtahere, gotta make a movie.
Lennon and Johanne, check this out if you haven't already. Thirty minutes worth of work for four minutes of amusing but useless political commentary:
http://movies.lionhead.com/movie/59257
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 4:59pm
Ibble -
It will be interesting and sad to see you post his feedback here and watch the right attack him if he disagrees with the lockstep view.
Tell him many of us are glad he made it home alive and in one piece.
Night!
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 5:00pm
No offense taken to either New Dawn or Johannesrolf. I was just trying to explain my position, in the spirit of discussion, as I know both of you are as well. The business about epithets was aimed at Libz and those who express them selves in that manner.
Peace to you too, New Dawn, have a great moviemaking day! :)
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:01pm
"You point about the history of conflict in the region being ages old. Apparently as old as people have lived in the region"
I never made that point. the place was run for a thousand or more years by the Ottoman Turks. there was relatively little conflict within that empire. Jews lived all over that empire,including Damascus, Constantinopel and Baghdad, which was at least 30% jewish. they also lived in Palestine, a backwater at that time. in the late 19th century they started to settle in greater numbers in Palestine, they too were palestinians.
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 5:02pm
"You point about the history of conflict in the region being ages old. Apparently as old as people have lived in the region"
That was me.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/17/2006 @ 5:04pm
Dawn, I'm in the movie making biz myself, in a manner of speaking. technical details please. I bookmarked that site and will take a look later.
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 5:05pm
Wow, let me try something novel, let me admit a mistake and apologize for it! :)
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:05pm
I used to be an animation production manager, until I apparently reached the age of being too old to be desired to be employed.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:06pm
Not that I don't want to be employed... mind you. I didn't know that once I got over 50, I'd be put out to pasture... Bush's economy, 53 means too old for anything but a job at Walmart as a greeter.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:09pm
yes, Lennon, remember the vice presidential succession?
I was perhaps a little rough on you there, my apologies
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 5:10pm
Watched the clip New Dawn - Thumbs up!
Any others?
Posted by Hman23 at 03/17/2006 @ 5:11pm
No problem Johannesrolf, I made an error that dday too. Went and looked it up, and realized I was confused about the differences between Presidential and VP succession. I got mad at myself for talking without having all the facts straight. Never was upset with you. But, yeah, a little softer touch would have been appreciated. :) Peace, bro!
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:12pm
I agree HMAN, it is a great clip!
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:14pm
However, Johannesrolf, I also remember having said what I said in a condescending manner, so I deserved the heavy hand that day.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:15pm
You taught me that day to remember to stay in my place of peace and love, and to avoid being rude to others. I'm human and have my bad days and forget. But, I try...
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:16pm
Posted by NEW DAWN 03/17/2006 @ 5:00pm he did not seem very gung ho
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 5:20pm
Lennon, you wrapped that up very nicely, thanks, now we can get back to Bush bashing
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 5:21pm
hahahahaha yeah!
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:21pm
Col. Wilkerson, former Colin Powell Chief of Staff, on CNN now, says it was a mistake to go into Iraq knowing what he knows now. Also says the State Dept. was only involved in prewar planning and assistance to the degree that the Dept. of Defense demanded they do specific things for DOD.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:27pm
Posted by LIBZSUK 03/17/2006 @ 12:53am
oh hey libzsuk! we were just talking about the iraq war and politics and stuff. would you like some vegan scones and california rolls? have you met woodeyee? i think you two would hit it off nicely!
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 5:28pm
Posted by HMAN23 03/17/2006 @ 5:11pm
long day - what movie clip? cant find it...long week...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 5:29pm
Wilkerson is saying that he feels that pre-emption is likely the Bush Administration's primary choice. He's also saying they don't do effective diplomacy. Their concept of diplomacy is never better than how they are doing it with North Korea. He is saying he hopes we don't go to war with Iran.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:30pm
Wilkerson is saying unequovically that the Bush Admin cherry picked intelligence pre Iraq intervention. He is saying that Wolfson didn't do all he could have to make sure the intelligence presented was complete and accurate.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:32pm
Ya notice how all these lib traitors are pissing in thier panties right now????Wait in the weeks to come...you shit for brains fools are gonna look more weak and stupid than you already do...When all these documents get fully translated its gonna be a joy to watch all you nitwits backstep and try to dance around trying to change the subject ,etc
THE LIBERAL CRACKUP WILL BE A SIGHT TO BEHOLD
Posted by libzsuk at 03/17/2006 @ 5:34pm
Wilkerson is saying they (he and Powell) threw out the first intelligence assessment on Iraq and demanded that they get credible intelligence. he says that they were assured by Tennant that the materials presented by Powell were told to him to be absolutely reliable. He ended by saying the American public was lied to.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:34pm
if you have nukes, they'll try diplomacy, something not lost on Iran, hey let's have nukes for everyone, including Liechtenstein, Andorra and Monaco, (I know I've used that before)
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 5:36pm
Wilkerson's inference was, the diplomacy being tried with N Korea is a joke.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:38pm
BushCo is now pushing for an easing of restrictions on foreign investment in aircrft industry in the US. I guess, if Bush can't give DP World the ports, he'll try to give them our airports and airlines.
Posted by Lennonist at 03/17/2006 @ 5:42pm
Posted by LIBZSUK 03/17/2006 @ 5:34pm
libzsuk, meet woodeyee, woodeyee, this is libzsuk. (romantic music, fireworks, conservative talking points, profanity, and moronic giggling - a match made in hell).
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 5:43pm
hey - i got an idea...new method of torture!
put detainees in room with libzsuk and woodeyee...see how long before they squeel and spontaneously combust!
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/17/2006 @ 5:48pm
my favorite torture moment is in the Billy Wilder movie"one two three" where the east germans torture a guy,played by the late great Horst Buchholz, by playing the itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellowpolkadot bikini song over and over again. he cracked. like all Billy Wilder movies, a hoot, don't miss
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:06pm
back to topic, the Tories still looking and hoping for WMDs in Iraq are like the japanese soldiers found years after the end of the war on isolated atolls, ready to fight on.
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:08pm
Lennonist,
I would consider the possibility of Clinton having lied about Iraq possessing dangerous weapons and actually having posed a threat to have been more likely than not. Clinton maintained the deadly sanctions responsible for the unnecessary deaths of approximately 500,000 children. There was a frighteningly, detailed article published several years ago, by Harpers (Joy Gordon), analyzing the specific tactics utilized by the U.S. and British governments and their manipulations over the UN program; withholding numerous equipment and supplies purchased legally and approved by health officials under the oil for food program, but vetoed by the Americans and Brtits for no explainable or relevant security rationale.
Here is some writing by Michael Klare on Clinton and his policies during the 90s (his position being that Clinton was working to advance the U.S. presence in the region for strategic access to the energy reserves):
"Until now, the contested rimlands of Eurasia were the base of U.S. power, while in the south-central region there was but a very modest presence of U.S. forces. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the primary U.S. military realignment has entailed the drawdown of American forces in East Asia and Europe along with the buildup of forces in the south-central region. U.S. bases in Europe are being closed, while new military bases are being established in the Persian Gulf area and in Central Asia.
It is important to note that this is a process that began before 9/11. September 11 quickened the process and gave it a popular mandate, but this was entirely serendipitous from the point of view of U.S. strategists. It was President Clinton who initiated U.S. military ties with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, and who built up the U.S. capacity to intervene in the Persian Gulf / Caspian Sea area. The U.S. victory in Iraq was not a victory of Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld; it was Clinton's work that made this victory possible.
The war against Iraq was intended to provide the United States with a dominant position in the Persian Gulf region, and to serve as a springboard for further conquests and assertion of power in the region. It was aimed as much, if not more, at China, Russia, and Europe as at Syria or Iran. It is part of a larger process of asserting dominant U.S. power in south-central Eurasia, in the very heartland of this mega-continent." Michael Klare
Clinton was more subtle and intelligent, whereas Bushco, like a rampaging neanderthal, has lumbered onto the scene and intitated the course and brute policies that leave no uncertainties as to his motives. One might argue that Clinton was even more dangerous, in a way. I don't know, that is a difficult position (the stealth of Clinton being a greater danger) to maintain in light of the bush horror. Still, Clinton was a perpetual disappointment, as the majority of democrats have been.
Posted by Oustbush at 03/17/2006 @ 6:21pm
as Clinton comes into focus with time, he still looks like George Washington in comparison with the current knucklehead.
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:25pm
as Clinton comes into focus with time, he still looks like George Washington in comparison with the current knucklehead.
Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/17/2006 @ 6:25pm |
True enough, but wouldn't it be fun if we could shake Clinton from the ranks; if only to see the consrvatives left speechless and with no more blame-everything-on-Bill/Hillary talking points?
Posted by Oustbush at 03/17/2006 @ 6:35pm
the Clinton rants are a knee jerk reaction of jerks
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/17/2006 @ 6:45pm
Thank you, folks, for an enjoyable afternoon read.
I believe the topic of the day is: Still Looking for that Smoking Gun in Iraq
I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis back in '62 (?) when JFK had the blow up pictures of the Soviet missile sites in Cuba & the missles aboard Soviet ships heading towards Cuba. The technology of aerial & satellite photography has improved considerably since then. However, I was more convinced by the grainy, fuzzy missle photos than anything the Empirical Presidency showed prior to the invasion of Iraq.
Before the first primary in 2000, I heard a radio news story about Dubya's "warchest" of campaign funds being two or three times larger than the nearest competitor in the Republican Party. As I recall, the story ran even before Dubya announced he was a candidate. At the time, I told my wife, "This guy scares me! If he wins, this country is in big trouble."
Until Dubya took the presidency, I was more apolitical than anything. I voted, read or listened to the news often but never felt my input in the system beyond those duties would make a difference. When Dubya claimed the Oval Office, I got scared! I believe the actions of Dubya & his administration have exceeded my worst pre-election fears!
Was Huessein a bad guy? Yes! Should we have encouraged & assisted internal dissent? Yes! Should we have fabricated evidence to support the pre-chosen objective of a weak president who is unable to refuse any request by his handlers? ABSO-F***ing-LUTELY NOT!
We are on a course of self-destruction! It won't be pretty!
Posted by Uriah at 03/17/2006 @ 7:17pm
As an aside, if Saddam is executed for using WMD's against the Kurds, should those who helped him get those WMD's share his sentence?... wanna take that handshake back Rummy?
Posted by NOYB 03/17/2006 @ 3:26pm
Excellent post NOYB. Too bad we all are living in hamsterland, where there are no consequences for anything.
Eric
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/17/2006 @ 9:35pm
how about apologizing to the world, admitting we were wrong and asking for help...
Posted by LOVELOKI 03/17/2006 @ 3:48pm
Ironically, in my view, that is the only hope we have of anything resembling a sane withdrawl.
Unfortunately, while many are willing to ditch the neo-cons, I don't think many are ready for America to publicly apologise for anything. They may be shaking the bushco bullshit. But they are not ready to abandon the American mythos of, "Everything we do is great, because America is great"
Of course, to do that should prove we have ethics and cojones. But kneejerk patriotism has always ruled the day. I mean, it's how we (most Americans) got sucked into this mess to start with.
Bushco can be wrong. America cannot. We're not mature enough for that yet.
Eric
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/17/2006 @ 9:44pm
Posted by MASK 03/17/2006 @ 3:54pm
"I was under SOME WACKY impression that hearing alternative viewpoints was a "good" thing".
How about relative, not just alternative. Geez, I thought I was argumentative. I am under some SOME WACKY impression that relative is kinda...uh...well...relative.
You never answered any posters who ask what is too much for you to defend, (all the while claiming not to.)
"Again...my bad."
Yea. You'll do better. Maybe it'll help, if you start by reapeating to yourself,"Clinton is no longer president. Clinton is no longer relevant."
Eric
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/17/2006 @ 9:53pm
THE LIBERAL CRACKUP WILL BE A SIGHT TO BEHOLD
Posted by LIBZSUK 03/17/2006 @ 5:34pm
Will be? Backpedaling, are we? At the same time you look into the future and say what tomorrows news will be.
As though it were a fact. I've always presumed, your threshold for accepting things as fact was low. But you are even more stupid than I previously thought.
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/17/2006 @ 9:59pm
Eric/Malcontent,
I'm not much for nations apologizing. But whether we do or not, I do like the idea of completely turning over Iraq to the UN. However, the problem is, that they don't want it (who the hell would). It's a total mess, thanks largely to us. Plus, there is an attitude of, well, the Americans got themselves into this mess, let them get themeslves out of it! (Again, an understandable sentiment to some degree.)
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/17/2006 @ 10:21pm
I still wonder WHY we get ourselves into these fixes in the first place.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/17/2006 @ 10:22pm
Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/17/2006 @ 10:21pm
This is all true. But an apology would be virtually unprecidented and give any nation, or the UN the option to do anything to help and still look principled. Some would feel politcally unrestained, to do the right thing.
Some would help, just for the oportunity to rub Americas nose in something. I don't want America down on itself, but a little humility couldn't hurt us. We're far to arrogant for that (At least I am.)
Could help with our lost image as nation too.
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/17/2006 @ 10:38pm
And a little help couln't hoit either.
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/17/2006 @ 10:39pm
I don't think there's any mystery, Mr. Frank Thomas. Sometime in between your studies written about the marxists, you should read some of the marxists. One doesn't have to endorse the proposed solution to the problem of imperialism to note that many of those thinkers did pretty precise work. Luxemburg, Bukharin, CLR James, Ted Grant, many others watched the world pretty closely, and were not mystified by events like the ones the United STates continues to pursue. Capital in cultural decline behaves in specific ways.
Posted by redwingblack at 03/18/2006 @ 12:00am
Interestingly enough, Mr. Frank Thomas, you might want to read Kevin Phillip's book on the Bush Dynasty. I found it fascinating. Phillips has always been very conservative, continues to be in fact, but his analysis of the emergence of the Bush family as a political phenomena on the international scene is very concrete. I laughed myself sick reading it. Phillips is profoundly anti-marxist, and yet his analysis of the state of U.S. politics uses the dialectical materialist historic method as well as I've ever seen it used, maybe better then most who consider themselves to be marxists. Best of all, the work is fairly objective in tone, and remarkably "left" for a conservative point of view. And Phillips is no dummy. His work "The Emergence of the Republican Majority" predicted the rise of Christian activist politics a full decade before its rise. I read that work right after Carter was elected in 1976, around which time Phillips predicted Carter's defeat by the religious right in 1980. Phillips is the most marxist anti-marxist. You should check it out if you are puzzled by the political behavior of the U.S.
Posted by redwingblack at 03/18/2006 @ 12:05am
Redwingblack,
Your comment(s) that I should read and study Marx and various Marxist writers (in order to enlighten myself, presumably) seems to be based on three underlying assumptions or charges:
1) I have not read or studied Marx, at least to any significant degree, and/or, even if I have, I do not understand the basics or specifics of Marxist theory.
2) Marxist theory is enlightening in general. It contains great truths about the world and the way it works.
3) Marxist theory can explain why we went to war in Iraq.
My Response:
1) I have read and studied Marx and Marxist theory. Perhaps not "extensively," but, during my time earning two degrees in political science, I did so enough, to feel I can speak somewhat on the subject, at least in terms of the basics.
2) Is Marxist theory enlightening in general? I am not a Marxist (actually somewhat of an anti-Marxist, you could say). But I do appreciate Marxism's contribution to political thought, in the general sense, and agree with him at least in terms of one basic specific. I agree with Marx's key insight on the inherent conflict between the owners of capital and the workers (though I disagree completely with him that it cannot be reconciled to any satisfaction.) I also appreciate his pointing out the importance of economics, as a factor in world events, in why nations do what they do, etc. However, one of the things I disagree with him and Marxists on is the idea that economics are the ONLY motivating factor in human affairs and why nations or entities of any kind do what they do. Yes, economics are important, but there are other factors, such as culture, which I find to be very important, and which I believe produces and shapes economics, rather than (as Marx believed) the other way around.
3) Can Marxist theory explain why we went to war in Iraq? Perhaps to some degree, in the general sense, particularly in terms of the economic motivation, though, I'm not sure that the war has really benefited us economically, with the tremendous costs, the exploding budgets deficits, etc. This war may turn out to be economically disadvantageous, actually a negative, in the long run. The instability it has created -- possibility of civil war, if not here already, etc -- does not bode well for smooth oil production and so on. I can ask a question like "why did we go to war in Iraq?," BECAUSE I am NOT a Marxist; if one IS a Marxist, then the answer is simple: economics (because that – and that alone – is the cause of EVERYTHING.) If one is NOT a Marxist though, then other factors and considerations come into play, and one is still left asking, why did we go to war?
Finally, I believe that it was Lenin who spoke extensively about imperialism, not Marx so much, as being the "last stage" of capitalist avarice (when capitalism needs foreign markets and so on). To a large extent, when one speaks of Marxist-Leninism, one is speaking of Marx, plus Lenin's imperialist theory, combined.
In that sense, Marx does NOT speak of imperialism that much, but rather, Lenin. (Who, unlike Marx, I outright reject in total, as a precursor to Stalin.)
P.S. I am curious as to why you address me as "Mr. Frank Thomas"?
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 01:12am
Posted by HMAN23 03/17/2006
With all of the comedic ammo this misadministration provides? You bet!
And probably sooner than later...
Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 02:29am
"I agree with Marx's key insight on the inherent conflict between the owners of capital and the workers"
this insight precedes Marx by at least half a century. from: "The Age of Jackson":
"the feud between the capitalist and laborer, the house of Have and the house of Want, is as old as social union, and can never be entirely quieted;" George Bancroft
this guy was pretty interesting, you may google
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 08:24am
Dawn, I'm in the movie making biz myself, in a manner of speaking. technical details please. I bookmarked that site and will take a look later.
Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/17/2006 @ 5:05pm
JR & ND,
In case you or New Dawn are interested, the link at bottom is to Democracy Internet TV, a new service whose aim, according to their site, is to:
Support a practical, direct strategy for media reform, with the weight of the Internet behind it. We're building an online internet TV system that lets anyone:
- Create an Internet TV channel. - Broadcast DVD-quality video to tens of thousands at zero cost. - Discover and watch Internet TV from a wide range of sources.
Democracy Internet TV [getdemocracy.com]
Having learned your interests in movie-making, I thought the two of you might want to check it out.
Posted by scoff0165 at 03/18/2006 @ 09:43am
Johannesrolf,
Actually, the belief that there is an inherent conflict of interests between owners and workers goes back even further than that, in the following sense. It is one of those beliefs that many have had, or noted, or, at least hinted at, through-out human history -- possible even predating the rise of capitalism -- though never to the point where it was all put together into one theoretical package, and fleshed out. Until Marx.
But isn't that the case with a lot of brilliant men? They often build on what had come before, refining previous thought, while adding to it, and then putting it all together into a newer package. This was true of Darwin and Freud, certainly; they definitely built on what came before. Of course, they also added brilliant new insights as well.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 09:50am
Though -- to reiterate something -- I am NOT a Marxist. I am a Freudian though. (And I think Darwin was right.)
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:04am
frank T, I appreciate your point, but would like to see citations, as I provided, so that we can all learn something new, Darwin, Marx, Freud, colossi all, no one can claim to be educated without some knowledge of all three. all have been attacked viciously recently. (very bad english, I'm afraid) like all colossi they do have feet of clay.
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 10:16am
thanks, scoff
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 10:17am
Does anyone remember, a year or so ago, when Bush announced we were going to go back to the moon? David Letterman did a "Top Ten Reasons to Go Back to the Moon" list. Number One was: maybe we'll find the missing weapons of mass destruction there.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 12:27pm
Eric
Posted by MALCONTENT3 03/17/2006 @ 9:53pm | ignore this person
Yes, it's true.....and sadly unfortunate...Bill Clinton IS no longer President. However, it is ALSO true that "history" didn't begin on January 21, 2001 and nothing existed as a frame of reference before that.
As OUSTBUSH noted....and many people forget...The Left was looking to end UN sanctions on Iraq due to reported starvation of children....BUT...when Bush began the run-up to invading Iraq in 2002...THOSE SAME PEOPLE were saying "No,no...let's give sanctions MORE TIME".
Now...you see where a person like myself with a memory that goes back FURTHER than 5 1/2 years ago....MIGHT be a bit confused over something that, shall we be kind and say "appears" hypocritical.
Posted by Mask at 03/18/2006 @ 1:31pm
Thanks, Scoff.
Posted by New Dawn at 03/18/2006 @ 3:03pm
Frank Thomas seems like a man's name, so I'm referring to you with the formal Mr. If you is a woman, I will call you Ms. But no disrespect is intended, please believe me.
Marx does not argue that economics is the sole determining factor in human affairs, he argues that political economy and the rationalizations that ensue as a result of certain fetishes around production are what is decisive. Cultural factors play a role, but cultural factors are wholly subsidiary to peoplekind's ability to produce and generate enough surplus to create extended technology, etc. If there's no production, or political economy, there's no culture. People don't think about culture or creativity until they know how they're going to shelter themselves, how they're going to feed themselves, etc. Culture may assume a leading role once basic continuity questions are resolved, but until such time, culture is usually beholden to its earliest beliefs, myth, magic, etc. Marx does not argue that these elements of culture do not play leading roles from time to time. How would that be dialectical thinking? But he does argue that until basic economic questions are resolved, there can be no HIGHER FORMS of culture. And when you think about how backwards people become when all they face is a daily survival pressure- as do some peoples in Afghanistan, or some peoples in the inner city and rural ghettos of our own country, you might think he has a point. That's the argument.
I include Lenin among the marxists, and it is unfortunate you do not. There were substantial differences between Lenin and Stalin in not only their ideas, but their actual practice. None of which is to say that Lenin was without error, but his errors are more along the line of, say, a Jefferson, who could on the one hand be very enlightened about the democratic foundations of this country, and on the other hand, be completely backwards as regards the continued existence of slavery and disenfranchisement of the continent's original inhabitants. His brief comments on the resistance of the indigenous tribes that are part of the Declaration stand for all time as an example of one-dimensional thinking in a mind that was otherwise brilliant in most instances. Nothing exists without contradiction.
Your equation of Lenin with Stalin simply doesn't hold water. I have studied the histories and the practice of both men, and they are as night and day. Lenin was never incapable of admitting error, and lost several votes in his own party even after the Bolsheviks came to power. His writings during the Civil War (1917-1920)are where his true character come through, as do his writings during the years of exile (1905-1917). His works on the behavior of imperialism are not without peer, but they are vital. I am surprised you discount such reference. I would think that any analysis that leads us closer to a truth that is relative to our situation is useful. Stalin's work, on the other hand- volume for volume- is nothing but a collection of partyline rationalizations, in which the party is always correct, regardless of its many errors and crimes, intentional or otherwise. You won't find such presumption in Lenin. What you will find are the errors made by the leader of a state under siege, most of which were admitted to and discussed in the party documents of his day. But I suppose you don't know that, because you've never really bothered to look. I think it is a toxic thing to let anyone tell us that "this is that". Bushism isn't old timey fascism. Leninism isn't stalinism.
You never mentioned Kevin Phillips. It's a shame. He's quite a source.
Posted by redwingblack at 03/18/2006 @ 3:31pm
good points red.
"disenfranchisement of the continent's original inhabitants."
not just them but most "new" inhabitants too, universal suffrage came much later and was an anathema to many of the signers of the constitution. I think it is VERY important to remember that.
Posted by johannesrolf at 03/18/2006 @ 4:18pm
The final proof was on the first day. Look, even if you wanted to believe that Saddam had threatening WMD – maybe you listened to Colin Powell's Adlai Stevenson-like presentation to the UN and, based upon Powell's credibility (at that time), gave Bush the benefit of the doubt. You must answer the question: why, faced with a massive invasion force at his doorstep in Kuwait, did he not use them? On the first day of the invasion, coalition forces rolled across the border and encountered token opposition. They did not encounter WMD.
It is laughable to read that he spirited these weapons away to another country. To what end? To suggest that the "Butcher of Baghdad," the "Hitler of the Middle East," and all of the other appropriate epithets attached to this despicable cretin, wouldn't use whatever means he had at his disposal to save his own skin and defend his regime is nonsense. What more proof did an objective observer need to confirm Bush and the neocons lied?
Posted by seattlescribe at 03/18/2006 @ 5:54pm
Lenin and Stalin were both totalitarians, that's what I meant. Lenin crushed democracy after the Revolution (by crushing non-communist party elements), and created the secret police, thus creating/laying the groundwork for the police state that Stalin afterwards used for such horrific mass-murdering purposes. Was Lenin as bad as Stalin? No of coure not (who could be?). But he was certainly a precursor to him; he certainly laid the groundwork for his brutal and mass murdering rule. He was quite a brute in his own right.
He helped create Marxist-Leninism, obviously. That dubious achievement, in and of itself, should discredit him.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:13pm
After every revolution, an extremist element comes in and hijacks the revolution, turning its original ideals on its head. Khomeni did this with the Iranian Revolution; originally, it was a broad-based revolution, of the middle classes, students, secularists, and Islamic radicals. After the initial revolution (displacement of the Shah, etc), there was a second revolution, as the Islamic clerics (led by Khomeni) purged/destroyed all non-Islamic elements. Same thing happened in France. It happens in many revolutions. It happened in Russia as well. First a broad based revolution of many elements and factions, then communists (as they always do) seizing and establishing total power, crushing anyone who stands in their way. Lenin was the leader of that movement. He helped establish/consolidate Marxist-Leninism in Russia (through brutal means), from which the Russian people took 70 odd years to overcome.
Extremists always ruin everything.
We could not have HAD a Stalin if not for Lenin.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:19pm
My point about Marx and economics was simply that Marxism ultimately boils everything down to economics, in one form or another. The conflcit between owners and workers: economics. It's what drives all human history. Economics is to Marxism what the unconscious is to Freud; the raison detre.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 7:28pm
To present my rebuttal to David Corn, I excerpted the following from David Corn's article:
"Back to Hoekstra. He's suggesting that that wily ol' Saddam destroyed his WMDs or sent them to Syria minutes before the US invaded. But if Hoekstra had bothered to read either the report from David Kay or the one from Charles Duelfer--the two pro-war fellows who headed the postwar search for WMDs--he would know that both concluded there were no significant amounts of WMDs in Iraq before the war and that Iraq's WMDs program were moribund. So there was nothing to hide or destroy. But let's wish Hoekstra well as he looks at each and every one of the two million documents for killer evidence to support the discredited prewar case for war."
There never was a "discredited prewar case for war," unless dishonest, leftist views are the only ones considered by David Corn. Far from being discredited, the prewar case for war has been strengthened, not weakened, by information gathered since March 2003, when the Iraqi conflict began.
In fact, though the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) found no evidence of WMD and that Iraqi WMD programs had been signficantly degraded by U.N. inspections and allied bombing, it also found that Iraq had banned missile systems, was planning additional missile systems, retained some WMD production capabilities (especially in dual use plants, BW seed stocks, and laboratories), and was working to maintain its knowledge base on producing WMD. The report also showed that Iraq had become quite successful in diverting funds from the Oil For Food Program for illicit purposes and in defeating the sanctions, especially in smuggling items banned by the U.N. They were so successful that Iraq had begun defeating the sanctions as early as 1999 and was using money skimmed from OFF to rebuild its conventional and unconventional (i.e. WMD) programs. Upon defeating the sanctions and having them dropped, evidence gathered by the ISG shows that Saddam would have rapidly reconstituted his WMD program. Thus, all the money spent and lives lost in trying to contain Saddam and prevent him from rebuilding his military would have been a complete waste. Therefore, we had no other option but to invade Iraq and remove Saddam.
To substantiate this, I offer excerpts of the actual Duelfer Report, the majority of which David Corn excluded to bolster his dishonest statement that we had no justification for war. They are:
"KEY FINDINGS
Saddam's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the securityof the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with UN inspections--to gain support for liftingsanctions--with his intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD with a minimum of foreignintrusiveness and loss of face. Indeed, this remained the goal to the end of the Regime, as the starting of anyWMD program, conspicuous or otherwise, risked undoing the progress achieved in eroding sanctions andjeopardizing a political end to the embargo and international monitoring.
The introduction of the Oil-For-Food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the Regime. OFF rescued Baghdad's economy from a terminal decline created by sanctions. The Regime quickly came to see that OFF could be corrupted to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine sanctions and toprovide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and potential WMD-related development.
By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine theirinternational support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999.
Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq's WMD capability--which was essentially destroyed in 1991--after sanctions were removed and Iraq's economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability--in an incremental fashion,irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks--but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
PROCUREMENT OF ITEMS BANNED BY THE UN
Iraq under Saddam successfully devised various methods to acquire and import items prohibited under UN sanctions. Numerous Iraqi and foreign trade intermediaries disguised illicit items, hid the identity of the enduser, and/or changed the final destination of the commodity to get it to the region. For a cut of the profits,these trade intermediaries moved, and in many cases smuggled, the prohibited items through land, sea, and air entry points along the Iraqi border.
MISSILE DEVELOPMENT
Given Iraq's investments in technology and infrastructure improvements, an effective procurement network,skilled scientists, and designs already on the books for longer range missiles, ISG assesses that Saddamclearly intended to reconstitute long-range delivery systems and that the systems potentially were for WMD. Iraq built a new and larger liquid-rocket engine test stand capable, with some modifi cation, of supporting engines or engine clusters larger than the single SA-2 engine used in the Al Samud II.
Iraq built or refurbished solid-propellant facilities and equipment, including a large propellant mixer, an aging oven, and a casting pit that could support large diameter motors. Iraq's investing in studies into new propellants and manufacturing technologies demonstrated its desire for more capable or effective delivery systems.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and signifi cance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq's ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date. Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.
Nevertheless, after 1991, Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program. Senior Iraqis--several of them from the Regime's inner circle--told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended.
In the wake of Desert Storm, Iraq took steps to conceal key elements of its program and to preserve what it could of the professional capabilities of its nuclear scientifi c community.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.
Iraq would have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability. Nevertheless, after 1996 Iraq still had a significant dual-use capability--some declared--readily useful for BW if the Regime chose to use it to pursue a BW program. Moreover, Iraq still possessed its most important BW asset, the scientifi c know-how of its BW cadre.
Depending on its scale, Iraq could have re-established an elementary BW program within a few weeks to a few months of a decision to do so, but ISG discovered no indications that the Regime was pursuing such a course. In spite of the diffi culties noted above, a BW capability is technically the easiest WMD to attain. Although equipment and facilities were destroyed under UN supervision in 1996, Iraq retained technical BW knowhow through the scientists that were involved in the former program. ISG has also identified civilian facilities and equipment in Iraq that have dual-use application that could be used for the production of agent.
ISG judges that in 1991 and 1992, Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent. However ISG lacks evidence to document complete destruction. Iraq retained some BW-related seed stocks until their discovery after Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Iraq constructed a number of new plants starting in the mid-1990s that enhanced its chemical infrastructure, although its overall industry had not fully recovered from the effects of sanctions, and had not regained pre-1991 technical sophistication or production capabilities prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
ISG did not discover chemical process or production units configured to produce key precursors or CW agents. However, site visits and debriefs revealed that Iraq maintained its ability for reconfiguring and 'making-do' with available equipment as substitutes for sanctioned items.
ISG judges, based on available chemicals, infrastructure, and scientist debriefings, that Iraq at OIF probably had a capability to produce large quantities of sulfur mustard within three to six months.
A former nerve agent expert indicated that Iraq retained the capability to produce nerve agent in significant quantities within two years, given the import of required phosphorous precursors. However, we have no credible indications that Iraq acquired or attempted to acquire large quantities of these chemicals through its existing procurement networks for sanctioned items.
ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations. The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts, but we have no indications this was planned.
ISG has no evidence that IIS Directorate of Criminology (M16) scientists were producing CW or BW agentsin these laboratories. However, sources indicate that M16 was planning to produce several CW agentsincluding sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, and Sarin. Exploitations of IIS laboratories, safe houses, and disposal sites revealed no evidence of CW-related research or production, however many of these sites were either sanitized by the Regime or looted prior to OIF. Interviews with key IIS officials within and outside of M16 yielded very little information about the IIS' activities in this area.
The existence, function, and purpose of the laboratories were never declared to the UN.
The IIS program included the use of human subjects for testing purposes."
What this evidence clearly shows is that the sanctions were not working, that Saddam had almost overcome them, and was beginning the process of reconstituting his WMD program. So no Mr. Corn, no matter how much you wish it to be true, the case for war is not discredited. In fact, it's not even close to being discredited, especially if you consider an article in the NY Times from last weekend. It reports that Iraqi Generals were amazed at the accuracy of Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. about Iraqi WMD. The article also states how Saddam stunned his generals about two to three months before the war, when he told them that Iraq had no WMD's. So, again, the case for war is strengthened, not discredited, since everyone, including Saddam's own generals, believed Iraq had WMD. Even if they did'nt they retained the will and the means to make them, the latter of which was expressly prohibited by the U.N.
Posted by skeetjr at 03/18/2006 @ 8:35pm
Question:
Did President Bush and his administration lie to the American people about Iraq? This question can be broken down into two (related) parts: did they lie about WMDs (the main rational for the war), and did they lie about Iraq in general (in terms of the degree and nature of the threat)?
First, WMDs. There are usually two possibilities presented: 1) they outright lied, in total, from top to bottom, knowing full well that he literally had no WMD; if true, that is an impeachable offense. (I do not believe that is true, partly due to lack of evidence for the claim, and partly based on intuition and ideological beliefs about what the American government in general is capable of, regardless of who heads it.) 2) The Administration did not lie, in that they were the victim of bad intelligence; that is, they were "misled," given false/faulty information, and, if it turned out to be wrong (as it did turn out to be), then Bush was a victim of false information, not a conscious purveyor of falsehoods. (If true, that raises troubling questions about the reliability and competence of American intelligence; how could it have been that wrong?)
As I see it, these two explanations on the WMD question represent extremes (Bush and company totally lied about everything, or they were totally misled.) I believe the truth – as is so often the case -- lies somewhere in the middle. That is, while Bush was the victim of bad intelligence, he also lied. He was misled, in that he (as did we all, the CIA, the public, and the world) believed Saddam had some WMD (it was just a question of how many); however, he also lied in the following way: even though he truly did believe Saddam had some WMD, he knew he did not have as many as he was saying he had, and he also knew he did not have the capacities to deliver them as he was saying he did. So yes, in short, he did lie concerning the WMD issue.
Did they lie (not only about WMDs, but generally) about Iraq, about the threat posed by Saddam? I believe the answer is in fact yes, in the following ways. In general, they exhibited a pattern, in both their (alleged) factual statements, and in their rhetorical style, of purposely (i.e. dishonestly) overstating/exaggerating the general scope and size of the threat Saddam posed, in order to "sell" the war. That is, they did in fact "lie," in that they purposely painted Saddam as a greater threat than they knew he actually was. They stated that Iraq was an imminent and immediate threat, when they knew it was only a potential one; that was a lie. They stated that Iraq was a huge and grave threat when they knew it was not as huge or grave as they were stating; that was a lie. (To purposely overstate the threat a nation poses, in order to sell or rationalize going to war with it, is to be less than honest.)
Other (specific) examples of this pattern of exaggeration/hyping (dishonesty) include the Niger uranium hoax, relying on anecdotes from questionable Iraqi defectors, scare-mongering about Saddam using crop dusters against us and similar sensationalistic hype, and ignoring the statements of people like Mohamad El Baradei and others indicating he was not anywhere near to getting the bomb, and lacked all capacity to do so, etc. It all adds up to a pattern of disingenuousness/hyping at best, and outright dishonesty at worst.
Another thing is fairly indisputable: Bush and company rather conveniently (and shamelessly) "cherry-picked" information: they relied on, sanctioned, cited, put forward and endorsed, information suggesting/supporting the "he is utterly awash in WMD" claim, while conveniently ignoring/disregarding information that suggested otherwise. This strongly supports the contention that they were attempting to "hype" or "sell" the war (which they did with considerable success).
To some extent the issue may have been (at least in part) psychological in nature. That is, Bush himself may not necessarily have been "lying," in that (to some unknowable extent) he really had come to believe his own sensationalistic rhetoric (i.e., he was kidding himself, in order to psychologically convince himself). This could be an example of dishonesty, or not; if one consciously cherry-picks, one is being dishonest. If done unconsciously, one is not -- or at least, is not in as egregious a manner -- being dishonest. Of course, if the inspection process had been left to play out, we would have eventually found out the truth; that was the course of action I favored; let us -- and the world -- withhold final conclusions and decisions as to course of action until we were more certain, because war should only be undertaken when certain as to what the facts are, and a determination as to its necessity – or not -- can be truly made. We had the means to find out and make that determination – inspections – but Bush purposely preempted the inspections process. His doing so supports the notion that the war was – at least in part – fought for reasons other than WMD. (That is, if the WMD issue really was – as we claimed all along -- our main concern about Iraq, then why wouldn't we have let them continue, in order to find out the truth as to whether he had them, or not?)
This is a somewhat complex issue; reasonable people disagree on it. My own personal view is that they did (to some extent) consciously "hype" (exaggerate) the degree of the threat posed by Iraq in order to sell the war, a war that was therefore (to some extent) fought for reasons other than those given. There clearly was some degree of disingenuousness (dishonesty) concerning the reasons given for the war; to some extent, the decision was made to go to war first (remember, "regime change" was often openly stated as the goal, even before the 2003 round of inspections started), then rationales/justifications began to be offered, such as WMD and an alleged (and untrue) connection to September 11th. (And since those two reasons have failed to pan out, "spreading democracy" has become the latest rational offered. Further, there is no doubt but that Bush – especially Cheney, specifically – lied through their teeth about Saddam's "connection" to the September 11th attacks; there was no evidence for that, and they knew it, but said it anyway.) My beliefs are also consistent with the Downing Street memo, in which the British noted the American decision/desire to go to war, and their observation that the WMD issue and alleged September 11th connections were going to be "used" to justify the war.
In short, in all the ways described, Bush and his cronies were in fact dishonest, in addition to genuinely being misled by bad intelligence.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:39pm
To put it another way, the WMD issue was, all along -- to some specific, though exactly indeterminable degree -- a rationalization for a war that was actually fought (perhaps largely) for other reasons.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 10:59pm
Posted by SKEETJR 03/18/2006 @ 8:35pm
"Far from being discredited, the prewar case for war has been strengthened, not weakened, by information gathered since March 2003, when the Iraqi conflict began."
I see. So the prewar case can be strengthened retrogressively?
Unfortunately, you make no more sense in the rest of your post.
"n fact, though the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) found no evidence of WMD and that Iraqi WMD programs had been signficantly degraded by U.N. inspections and allied bombing, it also found that Iraq had banned missile systems, was planning additional missile systems, retained some WMD production capabilities (especially in dual use plants, BW seed stocks, and laboratories), and was working to maintain its knowledge base on producing WMD."
So, aside from scheming and having excess factory capacity, they found what exactly? Banned missles? You mean these missles?
"In February 2003, U.N. inspectors evaluated two versions of the Al Samoud 2 missile using four separate computer models. Both versions were found to exceed the range limit of 150 kilometers set by the U.N. Security Council. The lighter version of the Al Samoud 2 was estimated to have a range of 193 kilometers, while the heavier version would be capable of a 162 km range. Accordingly, it was requested that all Al Samoud 2 missiles and warheads be delivered to the inspectors for destruction."
And they didn't comply. They kept 12. Horrors! Imagine, "A cache of 12 Al Samoud missiles was found south of Bayji at LD7154 and LD7644 on 21 July 2003 at 1700 hrs." With their 193 theoretical maximum range. I should have been trembling in my boots.
Link: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/samoud.htm
"...was working to maintain its knowledge base on producing WMD."
You mean, they kept their notes?!? Thank god we invaded.
"PROCUREMENT OF ITEMS BANNED BY THE UN"
Like yellowcake and aluminum tubes? hahahahaha
" ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.
Nevertheless, after 1991, Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program. Senior Iraqis--several of them from the Regime's inner circle--told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended."
Yep, they were a grave and present danger. Mushroom clouds on the horizon COMING SOON! (Soon as the world gets of our back and we find our notes, that is).
Thank god they didn't lob all those factories and notes at us when we walked right into their country. I wonder why he didn't defend himself, with his "banned missles" or retaliate against Israel. Where are all the terrorists, with the WMDs, smuggled out of Iraq, as we invaded?
Sanctions were screwed up, many were cheating. There were unintended consequences to the sanctions.
Glad we've made it all better.
Eric
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/18/2006 @ 11:15pm
To put it another way, the WMD issue was, all along -- to some specific, though exactly indeterminable degree -- a rationalization for a war that was actually fought (perhaps largely) for other reasons.
Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/18/2006 @ 10:59pm
Wow Frank. All those interesting and thoughtful posts. With interesting and thoughtful responses.
This one is short. So i will be to:
Duh!
;)
Eric
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/18/2006 @ 11:20pm
Eric/Malcontent,
Of course that is a "duh" to you and me and others who already share our viewpoint, but the at second summary post was not directed at you and me and others who have already seen the light.
Rather, it was directed at the right-wingers or skeptics or fence sitters who come in here. Now. If I had just said what I said in the second summary post ["to put it another way, the WMD issue was, all along -- to some specific, though exactly indeterminable degree -- a rationalization for a war that was actually fought (perhaps largely) for other reasons"], then it wouldn't have been backed up and explained as to WHY I have that viewpoint. It would have been just another "why I hate the war" platitude. I wanted to show, to demonstrate (in the first post), what THOUGHTS led me to make the (second post) conclusion. If I had not made the lengthy first post, then the second would have been just another platitude. If I had not included the second post, some might not have drawn that final summary/conclusion: I just thought it wise to succinctly (especially after pontificating for 10 minutes) what the actual, concluding, overall POINT was, if I had to sum it all up. I thought I owed it to the right-wingers to demonstrate exactly WHY and HOW I think what I do! I know YOU already knew and appreciate that point. But others might not.
The collective reason for the two posts was to explain why and how I think WMDS were a rationalization. Not just to SAY it.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 11:45pm
But your "duh" did make me smile, which I needed, so thank you anyway.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/18/2006 @ 11:47pm
Frank,
I knew you were just explaining to whomever. I was just poking fun at the fact you would have to explain that to anybody. Truly amazed how otherwise, seemingly intellgent people can't see that, no matter the real motive, WMDs were not.
And you're welcome.
Eric
Posted by malcontent3 at 03/19/2006 @ 02:16am
Skeetjr,
You sling propaganda like an early morning fry cook slings hash. Listen to your drivel:
In fact, though the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) found no evidence of WMD and that Iraqi WMD programs had been significantly degraded by U.N. inspections and allied bombing, it also found that Iraq had banned missile systems, was planning additional missile systems, retained some WMD production capabilities (especially in dual use plants, BW seed stocks, and laboratories), and was working to maintain its knowledge base on producing WMD.
• –The only substantive part of your posting: read it again "no evidence of WMD."
• --This paragraph reminds us that the base of weaponizing otherwise manageable scientific elements, be they biological or nuclear, is knowledge. The only way to destroy knowledge is to eliminate the people who possess it. If that is your aim, then you must hope you destroy any notes, papers, or communications they might have had as well.
The sum of your lengthy apologia for Bush executing the neocon agenda is a dismissive diatribe using non-substantive, conjecture riddled claims. I hope this is the stuff of Bush's defense when he faces either impeachment in '07 or war crimes trials in The Hague soon.
Posted by seattlescribe at 03/19/2006 @ 02:37am
I hope this is the stuff of Bush's defense when he faces either impeachment in '07 or war crimes trials in The Hague soon.
Posted by SEATTLESCRIBE 03/19/2006 @ 02:37am | ignore this person
yes, the reckless, incompetent bastards need to be held responsible for their actions. and if anyone died as a result of the torture they ordered, they must be put to death.
and we must apologize to the world and ask for help--not just the un, everyone. we need all the brilliant minds and different viewpoints we can get to clean up this mess we made.
Posted by loveloki at 03/19/2006 @ 11:41am
Well, Frank Thomas, I still think you should examine the history you've cited in the context of the actual events. The historic record, even in the Hoover Institute, demonstrates that there was indeed shared power under Lenin up until the western powers began their military attacks on socialism with 14 armies from outside of Russia. It would appear that that particular analysis of history is one you reject, so there's no point in further discussion. Keep it or reject it as you will, the fact remains that there is no other western thinker who went as far to understand the tendency of the capitalist system towards imperialism, and most who reject Lenin rediscover the wheel if they discover anything at all. His contributions to marxist analysis remain invaluable, and your moralist dismissal of him is the rough equivalent of that of the many black nationalist thinkers I know who reject the whole of the democratic process in the United States because of the existence of racist elements within its power structure. I have to say I'm really surprised at this, given the quality of your other posts here.
Posted by redwingblack at 03/19/2006 @ 2:41pm
notice how all the blogs are basically the same here? notice the buildup of posts?
HEY NATION - HOOK US UP WITH SOME E-PETITIONS OR SOMETHING - THE RABBLE IS GETTIN ROUSED!
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 8:03pm
wesclark4pres [securingamerica.com]
take a listen to the podcast. take a serious look at the man.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/19/2006 @ 8:45pm
LVLiberty1
Just another statement revealing your ignorance. If the US was to take the posture and action you charge them with, it would surely bring about a massive war with most of the Islamic world. Why? Because as shown below, most Muslims are Sunni.
It would certainly alienate them but you can hardly argue that it would lead to a massive war. Besides, the argument is that our presence their had had that impact. Certainly Jaafari's exclusion of Sunnis despite is pre-election promise is something he can do because we are propping his govt. up.
Posted by brunowe at 03/19/2006 @ 10:39pm
Redwing,
1) Was there shared power under Lenin? I will have to research it. But I'd be very surprised if there was. He was a communist, after all. They have a thorough track record of not sharing power with non-communists (usually by any means necessary). You seem to believe in the "the revolution went wrong when Lenin died" myth, popular with Marxists and left over Soviet apologists. Oh, if only the great Lenin, the REAL HERO of the revolution (not that fake phony Stalin) had lived, who KNOWS what MIGHT have been! Why it might have been a true socialist paradise! Sorry comrade, it was a rotten system, and it was doomed to failure, regardless of WHO ran it.
2) According to a democratic socialist friend of mine, Marxist-Leninist communism was not REAL socialism at all, but rather, a perversion of such. He would object to your referring to the Soviet system as such.
3) Even if outside forces had not attacked/intervened, the system would have been rotten, because communism was a rotten system, period. I'm glad it fell. I only wish it had happened earlier.
4) Non-capitalist systems can be imperialist too. Look at the Soviet Union for example, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, etc.
5) In the abstract, I dont object to "contributing to Marxist thought." But in practical terms, Lenin's contribution was to help faciliate and foster the rise and domiance of Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism for 70 odd years. I have no fleeting or lingering nostalgia for him.
In case you hadn't noticed, I am an anti-communist. Not a right-wing one, but a liberal one. Liberals invented the cold war policy of containment, remember? Truman, Acheson, Kennan? Of course, Vietnam modified liberalism's cold war stance (a good developpment).
So, being a post-Vietnam, modified cold war nationalist liberal, I have little or no respect for Vladimir Lenin.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/19/2006 @ 11:31pm
Did the Bush Administration exaggerate the need for war, as Frank Thomas asserts? The way out of this confusion is to review the sources on which the opposing opinions are based. One of these is U.N. Resolution 1441, which was passed prior to the war. At thhe time it was passed, the resolution was based on the best information known about Iraq's WMD and WMD-related programs. The other source is the Duelfer report, which the Iraqi Survey Group produced after the war. Thus, it was the most definitive document on the WMD and WMD-related programs actually maintained by Iraq.
U.N Resolution 1441
To this day, the left continually asserts that Bush lied about the need to invade Iraq. They say he manipulated intelligence to convince others that Iraq had WMD and was cooperating with terrorist organizations that wanted WMD. If this assertion is correct, then it should be corroborated by U.N. Resolution 1441. The complete resolution can be found at http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/. Here, you must click on "resolutions," choose "2002," and then click on "1441." Relevant excerpts of this resolution are presented below.
"Recognizing the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,"
"Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 (1990) and to restore international peace and security in the area,"
"Deploring also that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism, pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to end repression of its civilian population and to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistancein Iraq, and pursuant to resolutions 686 (1991), 687 (1991), and 1284 (1999) to return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwaiti and third country nationals wrongfully detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized by Iraq,"
Members of the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously in approving the above-referenced language, which clearly states the following "... Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security."
Indeed, Britain, France, Russia, Egypt, the U.N. and Germany all had their own intelligence indicating that Iraq had WMD. Also, according to General Tommy Franks, the General who led American forces in Iraq, officials from Egypt and Jordan told him in a meeting to proceed with caution because Iraq might use its WMD against us.
So, how is it possible that Bush could have persuaded all the countries on the Security Council to lie about Iraqi WMD, so that he could lie (or exaggerate) the need to invade Iraq? It simply isn't possible, especially when you consider that some of these countries, especially Egypt, Jordan, France, and Russia, were not particulary pro American.
But even if Iraq had WMD, did it have the means to deliver it? Regarding this factor, 1441 was also definitive, saying that "... Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism...," a statement that correlates closely with the Feith report, the validity of which I'll present in a second post.
Posted by skeetjr at 03/20/2006 @ 01:24am
In the past, we've fought wars against clearly indentifiable enemies. Like Germany or Japan, these countries declared war on us and had militaries that were large and easily identifiable. Thus, during these wars, there was no question in anyones mind about the malevolency of Japan's or Germany's intent, making it easy to convince Americans of the need for military action against these countries. In other words, we had concrete evidence of the need to defend ourselves and defeat the enemy.
Today, we have a much different situation. Instead of facing a large, clearly identifiable military, we are facing an enemy that operates in small, 6 to 12-person cells. Further, these cells reportedly operate all over the globe, in a very dispersed fashion, making them very hard to detect and penetrate. Therefore, other than their desire to destroy us, obtaining concrete evidence on Al Qaeda is notoriously difficult.
So to assess Al Qaeda's intentions, we must rely less on concrete evidence and and more on circumstantial evidence. Enter the Office of Special Plans headed by Under Secretary, Douglas J. Feith. What this office did was review raw intelligence data accumulated over the previous 10 years or so to see if Iraq and Al Qaeda were working together, especially since Iraq could make WMD and we knew (based on records and videos captured in Afghanistan) that Al Qaeda wanted them. The result was the memorandum produced by Douglas J. Feith showing at least 50 high-level meetings between Al Qaeda and Iraqi officials, many of whom specialized in making bombs and WMD. Far from discrediting the Feith report, evidence collected before and during the Iraqi conflict corroborated many of its findings. These included:
Iraq's general support for terrorists, including Its harboring of Abu Abbas, who was killed by Saddam, and Abu Nida, who was captured by the American military;
Payment to families of Palestinian suicide bombers; A facility outside Baghdad, known as Salman Pak, where the Iraqi's trained terrorists to hijact airplanes, using sharp objects that were readily available;
Iraq and Al-Qaeda agreeing to a non-aggression pact in 1993; Iraq's harboring of Abu Nidal, of Achille Lauro fame and other terrorists, like Abul Abbas Iraq's offer to Osama Bin Laden, giving him refuge in the country;
Iraqi personnel going to Afghanistan to train Al-Qaeda operatives in bomb-making and counterfeiting techniques;
Iraqi agents working with Ansr El Islam, an Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group that formerly operated in northeast Iraq. Operatives of this terrorist group were captured in eastern Europe, while smuggling a topical cream designed to kill on contact;
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi's (an addmitted Al Qaeda operative) promise to set up guerilla cells if the U.S. invaded Iraq, a condition that has been proven true;
Zarqawi's treatment in a Baghdad hospital for injuries sustained while fighting the Americans in Afghanistan. The hospital in which he was treated was run by Qusay Hussein, making it impossible that Saddam knew nothing of Zarqawi's presence;
The Kurdish militia capturing Hassan Ghul, a courier for Ansr Al-Islam, who was carrying a CD-ROM that contained a 17 page document and other messages produced by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The document contained a strategy for starting an Iraqi civil war and a request that Al-Qaeda provide reinforcements;
Information obtained from Russian intelligence that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks on the U.S., prior to the war. According to the Los Angeles Times, which reported the story, the attacks were to be carried out by Iraqi agents Even so, given Saddam's willingness to authorize these attacks, there is no reason to believe that he would not also do so, using Al Qaeda, especially since such attacks would be more difficult to trace;
Though Al-Qaeda and Iraq were ideological opposites (concerning the degree to which Islam was to be a governing principle) they had a common hatred of the U.S., and history is replete with examples of ideological opposites joining together to fight a common foe. If you disagree, consider the West and the Soviet Union in World War II; the PLO and George Habash's Palestinian faction fighting against Israel; and the various Afghan groups joining together to resist the Soviet invasion of 1979;
Some 50,000 of the 2,000,000 Iraqi documents translated to date, proving that Saddam was providing training and support for terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda;
The absence of any intelligence, proving Saddam's benign intent. In fact, Saddam's behavior over the 10 years preceding the war, showed he could not be trusted to stay within his borders. The examples are legion. His unprovoked invasion of Iran in 1980; his gassing of Kurds in Halabja; his trumped-up pretext for invading and conquering Kuwait (the slant drilling issue); his plan to send 300,000 Iraqi troops to the Golan Heights in 1998 (thwarted only by Israeli threats of retaliation, Saudi diplomacy, and poor logistics. Had any one of these components been lacking in 1998, Saddam may have made good on his threat). Thus, given his megalomania and penchant for bad foreign policy decisions, there is every reason to believe he would either give WMD to terrorists or train the terrorists to make them themselves, if it allowed him to avenge Iraq's defeat by the western powers.
Putting these items together, and knowing Al-Qaeda's intent, strongly suggests some degree of Iraqi - Al Qaeda cooperation. This is bad, especially since Charles Duelfer, the most recent leader of the Iraq Survey Group, produced a report showing that Saddam had begun rebuilding his WMD program back in 1997, was skimming money from the Oil For Food program, was using this money to buy WMD-related items, had missiles that far exceeded UN-mandated distances, and was conducting an elaborate deception to fool the UN into dropping its sanctions.
So even if the U.N. inspections were allowed to proceed until 2004, it is highly doubtful that U.N. inspectors would have discovered all the nascent programs and dual use infrastructure for producing WMD. Instead, the inspector's inability to find WMD or WMD-related programs would have been seized upon by the left and our so-called "allies" (France, Germany, Russia, and China), who were doing business with Iraq, as "proof" that we needed to drop the sanctions. Thus, Saddam would have defeated the sanctions, using elicit means, and, as all the available evidence shows, would have restarted his WMD program. Worse yet, it would've showed every despot in the world that all they need do is to wait out economic sanctions, while they take measures to thwart international pressure to disarm. The end result would have been to render U.N. mandates more worthless than they are now and embolden despots, like Saddam, to pursue whatever armaments, alliances, and conquests they desire. Worse, there would be nothing to stop Saddam from giving terrorists chemical or biological weapons, especially since only a relatively small quantity is needed (which could be easily supplied by his diminished WMD programs and equipment base).
Are these items suffcient to be considered concrete evidence of an Iraqi - Al Qaeda link? Possibly, but even if they're not, these items provide overwhelming circumstantial evidence of such a link. To my knowledge, the 911 Commission had no mandate to examine circumstantial evidence - only concrete information about intelligence failures leading up to 911. Nonetheless the Commission pronounced that it had found no link between our two foes, concerning 911 or any previous times.
After this finding, the commission was roundly criticized for this latter opinion and rightfully so. This is because it had no mandate to render opinions on anything other than Iraqi - Al Qaeda cooperation on 911. It is also doubtful that the commission had access to all sailent information, especially since the Iraqi Provisional Authority had just started going through thousands of pages of Iraqi government documents, some of which concerned Saddam's dealings with terrorist organizations and his pursuit of WMD. Also, the commission's findings dealt only in terms of concrete evidence, not the mounds of circumstantial evidence cited above.
So the bottom line is this: the left dogmatically points to the 911 Commission conclusions and ignores the circumstantial evidence of such a connection. If the left was in control, they would expose us to great danger because Al - Qaeda and Iraq would have used this uncertainty (circumstantial vs concrete evidence) as camaflouge to strike against us. Thus, Bush was right to invade Iraq and eliminate this nexus of terrorist and client state.
Finally, to convince me of there being no threat, you need to provide a set of plausible facts from reputable sources that refute the evidence that I've provided. I doubt you can. Because from what I've read (in the Nation and other like minded magazines) the left can provide neither circumstantial nor concrete evidence disproving the Iraq - Al Qaeda link or that Iraq would have refrained from making WMD and possibly giving them to terrorists once the sanctions were dropped.
Posted by skeetjr at 03/20/2006 @ 01:34am
In conclusion, U.N. Resolution 1441, the Duelfer report, the Feith report, and Iraqi documents captured in 2003 are the most definitive documents concerning Iraq's WMD and WMD-related programs. Because they detail intelligence known before and after the war, respectively, they corroborate one another in many areas and show the strenghts and weaknesses of our intelligence gathering abilities. Also, these documents not only showed Bush was truthful and intellectually honest in his interpretation of the facts about Iraq's WMD capabilities, but also in its interaction with Al Qaeda and the threat posed by an Iraqi-Al Qaeda nexus, since we could not know when or if Iraq would furnish Al-Qaeda with the WMD we knew they wanted to obtain.
These documents also point out another fact: the absence of fairness and objectivity in the leftist media. Instead of relying on all facts and intellectually-honest opinions drawn from those facts, the left uses half truths or fabrications to justify its ideological views and attack opinions that oppose those views. Thus, the leftist media seems more interested in preserving its ideological purity, making it more akin to the old Soviet propaganda organs, such as Pravda and Izvestia, than to the American media it claims to represent.
Posted by skeetjr at 03/20/2006 @ 01:41am
"...Also, these documents not only showed Bush was truthful and intellectually honest in his interpretation of the facts about Iraq's WMD capabilities, but also in its interaction with Al Qaeda and the threat posed by an Iraqi-Al Qaeda nexus, since we could not know when or if Iraq would furnish Al-Qaeda with the WMD we knew they wanted to obtain."
Therefore, given Saddam's past actions and Al-Qaeda's intent to use WMD against us, it is perfectly reasonable to consider Iraq an imminent threat, since an attack could be coming in two weeks, two years, or anywhere in between. Had Bush not acted accordingly by invading Iraq, he would be far more likely to be censured (or impeached) than for the bogus reasons offered by Russ Feingold!
Posted by skeetjr at 03/20/2006 @ 01:59am
Monday, March 20, 2006
The third anniversary...sacrifice, fear and hope. It has been three years since 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' began and for three years we debated whether the decision was right or wrong and until this moment we have different feelings and opinions about where this operation brought us and where its aftermaths are going to lead us.
This disputed operation no doubt had-and will continue to have-major effects on the future of the region and the rest of the world and it's not limited to the boundaries of Iraq; a fact that makes rational debate legitimate by all standards.
To me, each anniversary brings emotions, thoughts and expectations; some are personal and others are for the future of my country and people. Today I relive those historic moments and remember the way my mind accepted and welcomed those moments like all, or say most Iraqis did as we were praying to see Saddam overthrown without even bothering to think of the consequences or results…all we wanted was to see Saddam out of power, period.
Maybe people still remember how Iraqis first reacted to the change; they directed their rage against anything that reminded them of the regime they hated, burning and looting anything that represented Saddam and his regime. The rich and the poor both stormed those buildings because those angry crowds felt those buildings were Saddam's property and few of us realized at that time that that was wrong yet the emotions driving it were understandable.
The smoke faded away and we woke up to see all the chains gone and instead of the God-president and his iron grip over our destinies, we found ourselves without a guide, without any guidance but our long buried primitive nature, the long repressed nature of loving freedom and practicing it.
The change began then, at that moment where reason mixed with sentiments; were we free…or, were we lost?
Actually it was a lot of both and there was also a sense of great relief that the terrifying warnings from hundreds of thousands of deaths, famine and mass refugees were not true at that point, on the contrary the military operation itself was clean and successful by all standards and didn't cause any serious harm to the civilian population, the infrastructure, or the marching troops.
Saddam was gone and suddenly Iraqis and Americans found themselves face to face in a place that felt new to both of them. They knew almost nothing about each other as the prison Saddam built around us left the world with little knowledge about Iraqis except for the whispers of Iraqis who fled the horrors of the tyrant. On the other hand, all that Iraqis knew about America was that it's the merciless enemy of Muslims and Arabs, the invader coming for oil, the all-time supporter of Israel against the Palestinians, the imposer of the sanctions and above all, the America that let us down in 1991.
Now the two strangers had to work together to accomplish a goal Iraqis knew almost nothing about; they knew that America wanted to topple Saddam and secure the oil fields but that's all they knew while America was thinking of a huge transformation for the entire Middle East with Iraq being the key to that transformation. There was a wide gap between the two but we had no choice but to work together, because in a moment Iraqis didn't choose, America and a group of Iraqi ex-pat leaders were suddenly replacing a regime that controlled everything for too long. Iraqis were confused and vulnerable and there were too many differences to cope with but we were there and there was nothing we could do about it and we had to prepare ourselves for many transitional stages that some Iraqis thought were improvised and arbitrary while others thought were planned long time ago.
The question keeps ringing… Was it the right decision to remove Saddam?
I say yes, and that's what most Iraqis said and still say even if they became divided over what happened later…the truth is that virtually no one wants Saddam back.
I will just ignore the weepers, whiners, teenagers and half educated naďve people and their silly rallies as I don't want to waste time on people who can do nothing but blindly oppose everything without thinking. I will ignore them and focus on the more important goals we want to reach here…
Life stopped and time stopped when Saddam ruled Iraq, actually that totalitarian regime was moving backwards and dragging us with it and nothing could stop the deterioration that began the moment Saddam came to power. We had to accept the change and live with all that would come along with it whether good or bad. The democracy we're practicing today in Iraq is the exact opposite of what we had for decades and until three years ago. This democracy carries the essence of life, the differences, the dynamics and yes, the failures but also the seed of a better future.
Before the liberation we were suffering and we had no hope, now we are also suffering but we have hope and I see this hope even in the words of those that are cynical about the outcome of the political process; who say they hope things will be better in four years or eight years… When Saddam was here we didn't have any hope and we could expect nothing good from a dead regime that cared only about its absolute existence.
Yes. We are facing enormous and dangerous challenges and this is not unexpected because the old will not easily step down and accept the loss; the old will fight back fiercely and the old here is not only Saddam and the Ba'ath, the old can be found among many of our current leaders and the mentality they carry that belong to the same generation that bred Saddam but I believe they will melt away as well because no one can go against the direction of time and the clock cannot be forced backwards.
The green bud looks weak and is buried in the dirt and surrounded by a tough shell but it will break through this covering, pierce the dirt and stand on its feet to announce a new era. We will not be defeated and orphans of the dark past will get what they deserve and our sacrifices and the sacrifices of those who stand with us shall not go in vain, our sacrifices will pave an easier road for those want to follow us when they decide it's time for them to change.
And yes…Iraq will be the model.
Posted by Mohammed @ 19:26
From an Iraqi posted on the website Iraq the Model Blog
Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2006 @ 1:47pm
Libzsuck, ever desperate for an ear, no doubt. God,it must be lonely at the bottom.
Posted by Sweetdaddy at 03/20/2006 @ 2:13pm
Finally, to convince me of there being no threat, you need to provide a set of plausible facts from reputable sources that refute the evidence that I've provided. I doubt you can. Because from what I've read (in the Nation and other like minded magazines) the left can provide neither circumstantial nor concrete evidence disproving the Iraq - Al Qaeda link or that Iraq would have refrained from making WMD and possibly giving them to terrorists once the sanctions were dropped.
Posted by SKEETJR 03/20/2006 @ 01:34am
You take all of that effort and conclude with an impossible test - how convenient for you. You challenge anyone to provide evidence establishing the following:
1. There was no link between AQ and Hussein.
2. Iraq would have refrained from making WMD.
3. Once the sanctions were dropped, it was not possible that Hussein would provide WMD to terrorists.
The first is impossible because nobody can provide evidence of a negative. The burden is on you to show an affirmative link - and you cannot do so.
The second and third are also impossible for anyone to prove. You are asking for concrete evidence of future possibilities. But evidence only concerns what has occurred in the past or what is happening at present. Nonetheless, the burden is on you to show that the "evidence" was of such a high degree of certainty that war was necessary. If you want opinions and intelligence estimates, fine, there are plenty.
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/iraqrept122005/section3b.pdf (Chapter 3, beginning at p. 53)
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108_2/pdfs_inves/pdf_admin_iraq_on_ the_record_rep.pdf (Beginning at Section IV.D)
The 9/11 Commission Report
Read them yourself. It is a waste of my time to cherry-pick quotes to put on this site - whenever I have in the past, I never receive a response. They are well-sourced. They conclude with a high degree of certainty that there was no evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) of a formal link between Hussein and AQ - and Bush was informed of this within 2 weeks of 9/11.
Before you criticize the sources of the first two summary reports - keep in mind that you sourced Feith of all people - so what is good for the goose is good for the gander. After the CIA were briefed by Feith in August 2002, they agreed that his report was a political hack job - and give it zero credibility - a classic example of cherry-picking, using only the nuggets that advanced his conclusion, ignoring the intelligence that refuted it, and relying on unreliable sources (indeed, Feith's conclusions regarding Atta were proven false, as has been the information provided by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi)
Posted by Hman23 at 03/20/2006 @ 3:44pm
Did the Bush Administration exaggerate the need for war, as Frank Thomas asserts? --Posted by SKEETJR 03/20/2006 @ 01:24am
Yes. As a matter of fact, they did.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/20/2006 @ 5:49pm
REDWINGBLACK,
Lenin was bad; not as bad as Stalin, no, but bad enough. And he (i>was a precursor to Stalin. The groundwork for the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship was laid during the Lenin years.
Three points:
1. There is precious little evidence of "shared power" under Lenin. He didn't even share power with the Mensheviks. After the October revolution in November 1917 -- the one that put the Bolsheviks in power -- there were actually genuine nationwide elections. The Bolsheviks won about 30%, but about 58% went to the Social Revolutionary Party, the party of the peasantry. When their delegates showed up in Petrograd in January 1918 to participate in the government, they were turned away by the army, which was controlled by the Bolsheviks (headed by Trotsky). That was the last genuine election in the Soviet Union for 75 years. So much for "shared power".
2. Ever heard of Kronstadt? Kronstadt was a naval base very close to St Petersburg. Many of the sailors there were Bolsheviks and they had fought bravely during the February and October revolutions. But by 1921 they had become disillusioned with the Bolshevik regime, demanding a full restoration of political liberties. Lenin crushed them ruthlessly with the Red Army. Hundreds were killed and wounded. The point is that horrible political repression occurred under Lenin too, not just under Stalin.
I know it's hard (even for a Communist) to ignore the horrors that occurred under Stalin. But the urge to believe in the communist dream -- that it had some merit before being "ruined," before it "went wrong" -- is so strong, that radical leftists, Marxists, etc, try to put all the blame on Stalin personally. That way they can believe that Lenin, Trotsky, and the system they created wasn't itself the cause of the horrors of Stalin. They can still believe in the "Golden Age" myth, before Stalin "ruined everything." They can still believe that humane Communism is possible. Reality, though, speaks otherwise.
3. Whether or not Lenin had some insights regarding the connection between capitalism and imperialism is not relevant to the question of whether he was a thug or not (he was, though obviously not as bad as Stalin). A man can have historical/political insights and still be a dictator. But despite that, it's probably the case that Lenin's insights weren't all that great or insightful. He contributed to Marxist analysis? Most Marxist analysis is wrong. I'm not impressed if he made great contributions to a political philosophy that is largely wrong, and quite thoroughly discredited.
By the same token, if I dismissed Lenin's analysis because he was a dictator -- for no other reason -- then that would be unfair of me. It's theoretically possible that he may have had good insights. But, in actual practice (that is, when attempted to be applied to real-world situations, such as in the Soviet Union), there really isn't much in Marxist analysis that is particularly useful. It's pretty much been proven wrong as an economic system, and as a system for predicting the future. It does provide some good insights regarding the relationship between economics and politics, but most of the wheat is buried under a mountain of chaff.
Communism started out as a noble dream, a dream of equality and peace. But it ended in a horrible nightmare of gulags, bread lines and expansionist wars. That dream has died. We would all do well to let it lie in peace.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/20/2006 @ 6:32pm
Frank Thomas:
1. I'd like to know the source for the first part of your argument. I'm not even sure if the Red Army was existant in January of 1918- when in fact, Trotsky was directing the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The Red Army was created later that year when the assaults from the invading armies of the west- which you continue to ignore- began. But I'd love to know your source. I don't think it's accurate.
2. I'm quite familiar with Kronstadt. The Kronstadt garrison of 1921, however, according to records you can find in the Hoover Institute on War and Peace,as well as reader friendly historians like Paul Avrich, was not the same as the garrison of 1921, which was led by not only the sailor Petrechenko- who interestingly enough, became an agent of the GPU and a supporter of the Stalin regime until his death in Finland in 1944. Two other leaders of the rebellion, Rear Admiral S.H.Dmitriev and General A.H. Koslovsky, were very far from having any sympathies for socialism, with or without the Bolsheviks. Eyewitness Victor Serge, who was wholly sympathetic to the anarchist current, said it wasn't an either-or question, that in fact, the Kronstadt garrison was a mixed bag and did indeed pose a threat to the early soviet regime, which was at that point barely emergent from Civil War. To grant some points to your other claim, M. Kalinin, who represented the Bolsheviks in negotitations, was not a wholly reliable emisary, so there was lots of room for error, and Krontstadt was definitely a colossal confusion for the Bolsheviks. But unlike many others, I do not believe Kronstadt can wholly be attributed to the "power monging" of the Bolsheviks.
3. Marxism when used as an analytical science makes no claim of predicting the future, nor does marxism claim a "golden age", etc. Marxism is a form of political science, no more and no less. As for whether "most" is erroneous, I don't believe marxism falls down as a method at all when it's used as critically and creatively as the dialectic materialist method can be used. The fact that so many marxists were unsurprised by the character of the current war, for example, is evidence enough for me of its veracity.
4. Enough on Lenin. I still believe your dismissal of his work is rooted in a moralist take, which is fine, but it doesn't take into consideration the concrete conditions the early socialists face. I think it's interesting, however, that so many of Lenin's critics are very quick to turn around and uphold the Spanish anarchists, whose own political errors were as severe as Lenin's. Certainly most of them are very willing to overlook, for example, the screaming contradictions of early U.S. history, which were every bit as brutal as that of early socialism. In fact, if I were to argue in a manner similar to your own, I might say that democracy is an unworthy experiment, as so many of the wars fought by the imperialist superstructure of capital have ridden side by side with it. Certainly the world today- which is a capitalist world- says very little for democratic process. And yet, democratic process has to be militantly defended, aside from its capitalist excesses.
Posted by redwingblack at 03/20/2006 @ 7:54pm
LibZ
If you can stand to wrap that hollow melon of yours around a bite of reality, try peeking at Baghdad Burning A real Iraqi's view of post-occupation Iraq...
Posted by leftofcenter at 03/20/2006 @ 11:41pm
HMAN23 wrote:
"'Finally, to convince me of there being no threat, you need to provide a set of plausible facts from reputable sources that refute the evidence that I've provided. I doubt you can. Because from what I've read (in the Nation and other like minded magazines) the left can provide neither circumstantial nor concrete evidence disproving the Iraq - Al Qaeda link or that Iraq would have refrained from making WMD and possibly giving them to terrorists once the sanctions were dropped.'
Posted by SKEETJR 03/20/2006 @ 01:34am
You take all of that effort and conclude with an impossible test - how convenient for you. You challenge anyone to provide evidence establishing the following:
1. There was no link between AQ and Hussein.
2. Iraq would have refrained from making WMD.
3. Once the sanctions were dropped, it was not possible that Hussein would provide WMD to terrorists.
The first is impossible because nobody can provide evidence of a negative. The burden is on you to show an affirmative link - and you cannot do so.
The second and third are also impossible for anyone to prove. You are asking for concrete evidence of future possibilities. But evidence only concerns what has occurred in the past or what is happening at present. Nonetheless, the burden is on you to show that the "evidence" was of such a high degree of certainty that war was necessary. If you want opinions and intelligence estimates, fine, there are plenty..."
Posted by HMAN23 03/20/2006 @ 3:44pm
HMAN23 could not be more wrong, when he/she claims it is impossible to provide evidence disproving assertions 1 through 3. This evidence could be anyone or more of the following:
A. The documentation to which I am referring is fradulent. In others words, the information used in the Feith and the Duelfer reports and captured Iraqi documents are fake.
B. Other documentation, equally as authentic and valid as that cited above, showing how Saddam ceased all of his WMD programs, destroyed all WMD, was not skimming money from OFF to rebuild his WMD programs, and had ceased giving refuge and training to terrorist organizations, including known Al Qaeda affiliates. Such documentation would probably have to postdate the records cited in item 1, above;
C. Documentation, like that in B, above, showing how Saddam never interacted with terrorists, trained them, maintained nascent WMD programs, or skimmed money from OFF to rearm; or
D. There were no records or evidence (circumstantial or concrete)of Saddam maintaining WMD programs, rebuilding them, or taking measures to conceal them from U.N. Inspectors or interacting with terrorists and training them.
In fact, neither the Duelfer report nor the Iraqi records translated to date indicately anything remotely like A through D, above. On the contrary, the overwhelmingly indicate the exact opposite. Namely that Saddam was engaged in concealing his WMD programs, rebuilding them, and training terrorists, including those affiliated with Al Qaeda, which have already declared war on us and made known their intent to use WMD against us. So, because we had no means to monitor the daily activities of the terrorists and their Iraqi hosts, or obtain information proving they meant us no harm, the only logical route to take was a worst-case scenario, especially since Al Qaeda had already declared war on us and attacked us several times, both here and abroad. That scenario was that the Iraqi - Al Qaeda nexus posed an imminent threat!
Regarding the documents linked in your post, I suppose one could claim them to be as valid as the Feith report, if you're taking a skeptical and partisan point of view. However, the Feith report has something the linked documents lack: corroborating evidence, most of which is concrete. I listed this evidence as paragraphs 4 through 15 in the following post:
Posted by SKEETJR 03/20/2006 @ 01:34am
Lastly, the Senate Intelligence Committee Report found no evidence of the Administration coercing the CIA into coming up with Al Qaeda-Iraqi links or any other justification for the war. Therefore, the Feith report is orders of magnitude more accurate and reliable than the biased and dishonest documentation you linked in your text and which is discredited by the evidence collected to date and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report!
Posted by skeetjr at 03/21/2006 @ 12:20am
...which, leads to a bigger issue, as indicated in the following:
"Did the Bush Administration exaggerate the need for war, as Frank Thomas asserts? --Posted by SKEETJR 03/20/2006 @ 01:24am
Yes. As a matter of fact, they did.
Posted by FRANK THOMAS 03/20/2006 @ 5:49pm"
This one statement, posted by Frank Thomas, is a microcosm of everything that's wrong with the present day left: The consistent tendency to ignore anything that refutes their dogma to which they slavishy adhere. Despite overwhelming evidence, proving him to be wrong, Frank Thomas stubbornly sticks to his belief that Bush exaggerated the need to invade Iraq, while offering no credible evidence of his own to substantiate this assertion. Its as if being a liberal allows one to suspend the rules of persuasion and write essays, which are all assertions with no facts. When I was in college, such a paper would have earned no more than a "C" at best. Today, it will get published in The Nation Magazine. What is it? It's intellectual dishonesty, which thoroughly permeates leftist political thought and allows leftists to suspend belief for the sake of their ethically bankrupt and backward ideology. It makes leftist philosophy something that most of them tend to criticize: a religion, which persists in the face of the facts known to man.
It is for this reason that liberals almost consistently lose elections and why, if they ever come to power, their policies would do great harm to this country!
Posted by skeetjr at 03/21/2006 @ 01:09am
I am watching Bush's press confernce live as I write this. Helen Thomas just asked President Bush point-blank WHY we REALLY went to war. (The clear implication being that all the reasons given are bogus.) She asked it in a very "in your face" manner too. (That woman has more balls than many male reporters.)
Bush's response was the usual "things changed on September 11th" rap. It is nice to actually see a member of the fourth estate doing thier job, holding public officials accountable.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 10:20am
Therefore, the Feith report is orders of magnitude more accurate and reliable than the biased and dishonest documentation you linked in your text and which is discredited by the evidence collected to date and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report!
Posted by SKEETJR 03/21/2006 @ 12:20am
My sources are biased!?! You may think Conyers and Waxman are biased, but obviously you did not read the sources within – the CIA, FBI, NIE, intelligence agents, administration officials, foreign intelligence agencies, and the 9/11 Commission.
Yet you claim Feith's work is "orders of magnitude more accurate and reliable" simply because YOU say so. Well, the proof is in the pudding. His conclusions have been discredited. Why do you think he resigned?
November 30 2005
Counterbias.com
by Jason Leopold
Democrats leading the charge into the second phase of a bipartisan investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence have said this week that they will spend the next month or so working with Pentagon officials who last week agreed to probe a top secret spy shop once headed by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith that many longtime CIA and FBI officials and other intelligence analysts believe was responsible for providing the Bush administration with bogus intelligence used to justify war with Iraq.
When the probe is complete, which aides to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) - both of whom are aggressively working to collect pre-war intelligence documents that undercut administration's claims that Iraq posed a grave threat to national security - said will likely be in early 2006, there could be some sort of "public reprimand" brought against lower-level administration officials who work or worked at the Defense Department, the National Security Council, and in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, for "cherry-picking" questionable intelligence on Iraq and using it to win public support for the war.
Based on the way the probe is starting to shape up, it's clear the administration, particularly Feith, who resigned earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and possibly Cheney will bear the brunt of the blame, because the three of them sidestepped the usual intelligence gathering process that historically was handled by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of their own clandestine intelligence gathering operations in which questionable information on the so-called Iraqi threat was collected and used by administration officials to build a case for war but wasn't vetted by career intelligence analysts, said a senior aide to McCain who requested anonymity for fear of angering members of the GOP.
Last month, under pressure from Democrats and some Republicans, and with public support for war eroding, the Pentagon's Inspector General agreed to probe Feith's secret spy group, the Office of Special Plans, and whether the operation played a role in manipulating pre-war Iraq intelligence in addition to knowingly passing dubious intelligence from defectors from Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress to the White House to convince lawmakers and the American public into backing the war. …
Furthermore, the CIA had been unable to develop any links between Iraq and the terrorist group al-Qaeda. But under Feith's direction, the Office of Special Plans came up with information of an Iraq/al-Qaeda relationship by looking at existing intelligence reports that they felt might have been "overlooked or undervalued," according to a 2002 Defense Department briefing headed by Rumsfeld, who added that he had "bulletproof" evidence that Iraq was harboring al-Qaeda terrorists.
In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, Rumsfeld became increasingly frustrated that the CIA could not find any evidence of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program, evidence that would have helped the White House build a solid case for war in Iraq.
In an article in the New York Times in October 2002, the paper reported that Rumsfeld had ordered the Office of Special Plans to "to search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists" that might have been overlooked by the CIA. At a Defense Department briefing following the Times report, Rumsfeld downplayed the allegation, saying that whenever Feith handed him intelligence on Iraq's WMDs, Rumsfeld would respond by saying, "Gee, why don't you go over and brief George Tenet? So they did. They went over and briefed the CIA. So there's no there's no mystery about all this."
CIA analysts listened to the Pentagon team, nodded politely, and said, "Thank you very much," said one government official, according to a July 20 report in the New York Times. That official said the briefing did not change the agency's reporting or analysis in any substantial way.
Several current and former intelligence officials told the Times that they felt pressure to tailor reports to conform to the administration's views, "particularly the theories Feith's group developed."
Moreover, the agents said the OSP routinely rewrote the CIA's intelligence estimates on Iraq's weapons programs, removing caveats such as "likely," "probably" and "may" as a way of depicting the country as an imminent threat. The agents would not identify the names of the individuals at the OSP who were responsible for providing the White House with the wrong intelligence. But, the agents said, the intelligence the committee gathered was personally delivered by Feith to the White House, to Cheney's office, and to Rice without first being vetted by the CIA. Feith, who has since returned to work in the private sector, did not return calls made over the past week.
In cases where the CIA's intelligence wasn't rewritten, the OSP provided the White House with uncorroborated intelligence it obtained from Chalabi, who the CIA has publicly said is unreliable, the CIA agents said, and Iraqi defectors employed by his agency.
Several other current and former CIA analysts working in the counter proliferation division prior to the Iraq war said they were pressured by the Pentagon and the OSP to hype and exaggerate intelligence to show Iraq as being an imminent threat to national security.
Patrick Lang, the former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence, said OSP "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as a grave threat. Lang said that the CIA had "no guts at all" to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating US foreign policy.
Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of CIA counter-terrorist operations, said he had spoken to a number of working intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi."
In an October 11, 2002, report in the Los Angeles Times, several CIA agents "who brief Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on Iraq routinely return to the agency with a long list of complaints and demands for new analysis or shifts in emphasis."
"There is a lot of unhappiness with the analysis," usually because it is seen as not hard-line enough, one intelligence official said, according to the paper.
Another government official said CIA agents "are constantly sent back by the senior people at Defense and other places to get more, get more, get more to make their case," the paper reported.
By last fall, the White House had virtually dismissed all of the intelligence on Iraq provided by the CIA, which failed to find any evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, in favor of the more critical information provided to the Bush administration by the Office of Special Plans.
In a rare Pentagon briefing recently, Office of Special Plans co-director Douglas Feith said the committee was not an "intelligence project," but rather a group of 18 people who looked at intelligence information from a different point of view.
Feith said that when the group had new "thoughts" on intelligence information, it was given; they shared it with CIA director Tenet. "It was a matter of digesting other people's intelligence," Feith said of the main duties of his group. "Its job was to review this intelligence to help digest it for me and other policy makers, to help us develop Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism."
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 11:37am
FrankT
Also unsurprising that he didn't really answer the question.
Posted by leftofcenter at 03/21/2006 @ 11:46am
SKEETJR:
Regarding your challenge to provide counter evidence, here is a sample of what I provided to you before. Perhaps we will find out more if Phase II is EVER completed (even though we heard from Republicans last year that the public would have the finished Phase II report within two weeks!) or the investigation into the OSP referenced above.
(Sorry for the cut-and-paste length here, but some people refuse to look at the objective facts)
On June 16, 2004, the 9-11 Commission concluded that it had found no "collaborative" relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The 9-11 Commission further concluded that "[w]e have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." The Senate Select Committee's Report on Pre-War Intelligence confirmed CIA assessments that "there was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an al-Qaida attack" and that contacts between the two "did not add up to an established formal relationship."
On January 28, 2004, David Kay testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that there is no evidence of participation by either Saddam Hussein or his principal henchmen in the WMD-sharing with al Qaeda or any other terrorist organizations.
With respect to the Vice President's allegations of meetings between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence, the 9-11 Commission concluded: "We do not believe that such a meeting occurred." The Commission cited FBI photographic and telephone evidence, Czech and U.S. investigations, and reports from detainees, including the Iraqi official with whom Atta was alleged to have met. By late April 2002, the CIA and FBI had concluded that (1) "the meeting probably did not take place" (2) Czech government officials had developed doubts about whether this meeting occurred; and (3) American records indicated that Mr. Atta was in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the time of the purported meeting. Administration officials also described the same type of pressure and manipulation concerning the alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi Intelligence.
The Washington Post described an ongoing tug-of-war between the Vice-President's office and the CIA: The feud had been simmering in the run-up to the Iraq war. Cheney's office kept pushing the CIA to substantiate claims by Chalabi and other defectors that would connect Iraq to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The vice president's office focused on a meeting that had allegedly taken place in Prague in April 2001 between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence. CIA analysts would literally measure ears and noses in surveillance photos of the alleged meeting to show that the report was phony, but Cheney's aides would tell them to go back again, and yet again. In January 2003, the CIA finally balked at being assigned over and over to confirm what it viewed as phony intelligence. In a heated conversation with Libby, CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin is said to have insisted: "I'm not going back to the well on this. We've done our work."
As for the allegations that Iraq had trained members of al Qaeda to make bombs with poisons and deadly gases, and that they had high level contacts going back a decade, these statements were based on information provided by a top al Qaeda operative, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. However, Mr. al-Libi, who was captured in Pakistan at the end of 2001, recanted his claims in January 2004. In response, a month later the CIA recalled all intelligence reports based on his statements, a fact recorded in a footnote to the report issued by the 9-11 Commission.
With regard to general assertions linking Iraq with al Qaeda and terrorism, … intelligence experts within the Administration questioned this linkage prior to the Iraq invasion. As detailed by Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Counterterrorism for the National Security Council, the President requested a report on whether Iraq was behind the September 11 attacks. Clark describes: "we got together all the F.B.I. experts, all the C.I.A. experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to C.I.A. and found F.B.I. and said, ‘Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the President and it got bounced back by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer . . . Do it again."
This briefing, which was confirmed by a former high-level official, was also distributed to Vice President Cheney, the President's national security adviser and deputy national security adviser, the secretaries and undersecretaries of State and Defense, and various other senior policy makers. The official said, "What the President was told on September 21 was consistent with everything he has been told since - that the evidence was just not there."
[A} June 21, 2002 CIA report titled, "Iraq and Al Qaeda: Interpreting a Murky Relationship," stated "[o]ur knowledge of Iraqi links to Al Qaeda still contains many critical gaps" and "[s]ome analysts concur with the assessment that intelligence reporting provides ‘no conclusive evidence of cooperation on specific terrorist operations.'"
[A]n October 2002 NIE included key judgments regarding Saddam Hussein's link to al Qaeda. In its section on "Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgements in This Estimate," the NIE gave a "Low Confidence" rating to the notion of "[w]hether in desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with Al Qa'ida." The NIE also reported that "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger cause for making war."
In January of 2003, the CIA issued an updated and revised version of "Iraq Support for Terrorism," initially circulated in September 2002. The paper stated, "[t]he Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike." Specifically, the paper clearly forewarned in its "Scope Note" section that "[t]his paper's conclusions-especially regarding the difficult and elusive question of the exact nature of Iraq's relations with al-Qaida-are based on currently available information that is at times contradictory and derived from sources with varying degrees of reliability."
Michael Scheuer, a CIA analyst, described a comprehensive CIA examination of the possible linkage, which was totally disregarded by the White House. Scheuer told CNN, "Mr. Tenet, to his credit, had us go back through CIA files and we went back for almost ten years, reviewed nearly 20,000 documents, which came to 65,000 pages or more and could find no connection in the terms of a state sponsored relationship with Iraq. I believe Mr. Tenet took it downtown, but it apparently didn't have any impact." Another former CIA agent Bob Baer also confirmed, "But there is no evidence that a strategic partnership came out of it. I'm unaware of any evidence of Saddam pursing terrorism against the U.S."
Finally, former senior State Department intelligence official Greg Thielmann has stated, "There was no significant pattern of cooperation between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist operation . . . [i]ntelligence agencies agreed on the ‘lack of a meaningful connection to al Qaeda' and said so to the White House and Congress."
Mr. Bush asserted in his State of the Union address this week that Iraq was protecting and aiding Qaeda operatives, but American intelligence and law enforcement officials said the evidence was fragmentary and inconclusive . . . "It's more than just skepticism," said one official, describing the feelings of some analysts in the intelligence agencies. "I think there is also a sense of disappointment with the community's leadership that they are not standing up for them at a time when intelligence is obviously politicized . . . Based on the terrorism experts I met during my period of government, I never heard anyone make the claim that there was a significant tie between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."
Tenet said he also was forced to correct Vice President Cheney for having referred to Douglas Feith's disputed memo about Iraq's connection to al Qaeda as "your best source of information."
There is significant evidence that the Pentagon's newly created Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group (CTEG) under Douglas Feith (which is currently under investigation for wrongdoing) was used to place undue pressure on both the State Department and the CIA linking Iraq with al Qaeda, to cherry-pick and stovepipe such information directly to the White House, and to leak classified information regarding this linkage to the press. A New York Times article concluded that "for Iraq's links to al-Qaeda, Powell's staff was convinced that much of that material had been funneled directly to Cheney by a tiny, separate intelligence unit set up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. We were so appalled at what had arrived from the White House, says one official."
Mel Goodman, a CIA analyst for 24 years - also detailed the political pressure brought to bear on career intelligence officials: "'[Vice President Cheney] was holding forth on what he thought the situation was and why doesn't your intelligence support what we know is out there? They assumed he was referring to [Feith's] Pentagon intelligence unit that was producing stuff that was going right downtown and had much stronger claims about links between Saddam and al-Qaeda.'"
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 11:46am
Continued:
The Iraq National Congress (INC), an exile group based in London, led by Ahmad Chalabi had been supplying U.S. Intelligence with Iraqi defectors whose information had often proved suspect or fabricated. The problem with the INC was that its information came with an overt agenda. As the INC's Washington adviser, Francis Brooke, admitted, he urged the exile group to do what it could to make the case for war: "I told them, as their campaign anager, ‘Go get me a terrorist and some W.M.D., because that's what the Bush administration is interested in.'"
It was also clear to British intelligence and diplomatic personnel that the Bush Administration was pushing and manipulating intelligence to link September 11 to Saddam Hussein. For example, in the March 22, 2002 Ricketts Memo, part of the Downing Street Minutes documents, Peter Ricketts, the Political Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, advised the Prime Minister on his April 2002 trip to Crawford: "US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al-Aaida[sic] is so far frankly unconvincing" and "For Iraq, ‘regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam." The Downing Street Minutes also include the following admission by the UK Overseas and Defense Secretariat in the March 8, 2002 Options Paper: "In the judgement of the JIC [British Joint Intelligence Committee] there is no recent evidence of Iraq complicity with international terrorism. There is therefore no justification for action against Iraq based on action in self-defence (Article 51) to combat imminent threats of terrorism as in Afghanistan."
[T]he information provided by the prisoner Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi - that Iraqis had trained Al Qaeda members to use chemical and biological weapons - was false and that the Bush Administration knew his information was not credible. This is because of the recent declassification of a key Defense Intelligence Agency document by Senator Carl Levin:
A high al Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons. The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the Debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons. . . the D.I.A. report noted that Mr. Libi's claims lacked specific details about the Iraqis involved, the illicit weapons used and the location where the training was to have taken place. "It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers," the February 2002 report said. "Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest." There appears to be little doubt that key Administration officials knew of this important disclosure, because as an official intelligence report, labeled DITSUM No. 044-02, it would have circulated widely within the government and would have been available to the CIA, the White House, the Pentagon and other agencies. Nor could Secretary of State Powell have responsibly relied on al-Libi's information given that a classified CIA assessment at the time stated that "the source [al-Libi] was not in a position to know if any training had taken place." According to The New York Times, the misinformation came from a detainee "identified as a likely Fabricator" months before the Bush Administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.
The declassified DIA document also reveals that the President's and Secretary of State Powell's claims of a "decade" long relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda were completely inappropriate given that the DIA's declassified February 2002 report points out that "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." FBI anti-terrorism expert, Dan Coleman, observed that "[i]t was ridiculous for interrogators to think Libi would have known anything about Iraq." He went on to say: "AI could have told them that. He ran a training camp. He wouldn't have had anything to do with Iraq. Administration officials were always pushing us to come up with links, but there weren't any."
Another reason to question the credibility of the Bush Administration's statements relying on al-Libi's disclosure is that the Administration knew that his information flowed directly from a harsh interrogation. Current and former government officials have recently admitted that al-Libi stated that he had fabricated his statements to escape harsh treatment. The officials noted that al-Libi provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
David Kay conclusively stated in congressional testimony that "[m]ultiple sources with varied access and reliability have told ISG [the Iraq Survey Group] that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled CW [Chemical Weapons] program after 1991. Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed B during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections."
[W]ith respect to the charge by the Iraqi defector at Haeder that he had buried "tons" of chemical and other weapons, the CIA confirmed this was a lie.
[A]s to assertions regarding mobile biological weapons labs, on March 7, 2003, Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, told the Security Council that a series of searches had found "no evidence" of mobile biological production facilities in Iraq. In 2004, the CIA's Iraq survey group reported they "could find nothing to corroborate Curveball's reporting." The CIA issued a formal directive in May of 2004, stating that "[d]iscrepancies surfaced regarding the information provided by . . . Curveball in this stream of reporting, which indicate that he lost his claimed access in 1995. Our assessment, therefore, is that Curveball appears to be fabricating in this stream of reporting."
[T]he Bush Administration's claims about UAV have not been substantiated. On January 28, 2004, David Kay testified on behalf of the Iraq Survey Group that Iraq's UAV program "was not a strong point." That it presented only a "theoretically possible" chance and that there was no "existing deployment capability . . . for any sort of systematic military attack." With respect to the President's claims regarding Iraq's ability to effectuate long-range attacks against Americans, UN weapons inspectors found that the weapons in question could travel less than 200 miles (not far enough) the Washington Post noted, "to hit the targets Bush named."
In September 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) issued a report that concluded: "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission) actions . . .[t]here is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has--or will--establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
Moreover as noted in the discussion about the information provided by Hussein's son-in-law by 1995 the CIA was aware that Kamel al-Majid had stated that Iraq had destroyed these weapons soon after the Gulf War and no longer possessed any WMD. In his August 22, 1995, debriefing by UNSCOM and the IAEA, Kamel stated categorically: "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons-biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed." A declassified CIA document, apparently from a debriefing of Kamel by the United States, reads: HUSAYN KAMIL MADE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS AWARE THAT THEY WOULD REACH U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS: KAMIL STRESSED THAT NO [CW] AGENT WAS HIDDEN IN IRAQ, EITHER VX OR ANY OTHER.
With regard to the charges that tons of chemical, biological and other weapons were buried underground in Iraq with the help of a defector, Aduan Ihsan Saeed al-Haedu, we now know that the Administration knew that the charges had been disproved when it released its report trumpeting the charges. As James Bamford recently wrote: "The illegal arms, according to al-Haideri, were buried in subterranean wells, hidden in private villas, even stashed beneath the Saddam Hussein Hospital, the largest medical facility in Baghdad. It was damning stuff - just the kind of evidence the Bush administration was look for. If the charges were true, they would offer the White House a compelling reason to invade Iraq and depose Saddam. That's why the Pentagon had flown a CIA polygraph expert to Pattaya: to question al-Haideri and confirm, once and for all, that Saddam was secretly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. There was only one problem: It was all a lie. After a review of the sharp peaks and deep valleys on the polygraph chart, the intelligence officer concluded that al-Haideri had made up the entire story, apparently in the hopes of securing a visa. The polygraph was completed in December 2001, ten months before the White House report was issued.
Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so. Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm. "This [Curveball] was not substantial evidence . . . [w]e made clear we could not verify the things he said." The German authorities . . . also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. "He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy," said a BND official who supervised the case. "He is not a completely normal person," agreed a BND analyst. As one senior German intelligence officer explained after seeing Powell's UN statements regarding Curveball: "We were shocked," the official said. "Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven . . . It was not hard intelligence." British intelligence officials also raised doubts. The Robb-Silberman Commission found that British intelligence officials had informed the CIA that they were "not convinced that Curveball is a wholly reliable source" and that "elements of [his] behavior strike us as typical of . . . fabricators."
[W]ith regard to the CIA-prepared intelligence estimate, the Los Angeles Times reports: "Despite the lack of access or any new reports from Curveball, U.S. intelligence sharply upgraded its assessments of Iraq's biological weapons before the war. The shift is reflected in declassified portions of National Intelligence Estimates, which are produced as the authoritative judgment of the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies. [. . . Significantly] the caveats [previously expressed by intelligence officials] disappeared after the Sept. 11 attacks."
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 11:46am
Here is something a bit more current:
"Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 11:49am
Left,
I have also noticed (surprise, surprise), that questions from FOX News reporters at Presidential Press Conferences are incredibly softball, designed to elicit easy responses, neveral challenging. For example, the Faux reporter asked Bush(paraphrase): "Russ Feingold has introduced a resolution callng for censure of you...what do you think of his doing so during a time of war?" (Something like that.) In other words, trying to take the emphasis OFF of the fact that the President of the United States broke the law (and whether he should be held accountable for such), and instead trying to make it sound like even ASKING the question (is it ok for the President to break the law?) is somehow unpatriotic!
That's "fair and balanced" news for you.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 12:05pm
Can anyone deny at this point that Fox News is nothing but a branch of the Republican party, that it's sole purpose is to serrve the right-wing propaganda machine? Can anyone take seriously the notion that is real and objective journalism?
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 12:08pm
The Republican President lied and the Congress, including many of it's Democratic members, with assistance from the news media, helped him lie. Anyone with half an ounce of brains can figure that out.
Posted by fromredbird at 03/21/2006 @ 12:08pm
The following is the relevant chapter of the 9/11 Commission Report concerning Iraq:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch10.pdf
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 12:45pm
According to the September 11th Commission Report, there were a few tentative meetings between Iraqi officials and some of Bin Laden's men around 1997. (9/11 Report, pg 66). Despite their ideological differences, they did have a common enemy-the United States. However, this is not a reason to jump to the conclusion that Saddam and his government was en masse "behind" the September 11th attacks, that they knew of it in advance, helped pay for it or plan it, or necessarily had any connection to it whatsoever. There is no evidence of such outright operational collusion, as the September 11th Commission concludes (page 66):
"But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Queda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 12:50pm
My favorite all-time Dick Cheney lie (I know it's hard to pick just one, out of such a big pool) is when he was on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert, in the push/build-up before the war. He stated the following (exact quote):
"Iraq was the geographic base of the September 11th attackers."
Yes, he actually said that with a straight face. Lied right through his teeth. Of course, as everyone knows, Afghanistan was the "geographic base," not Iraq.
Further, Tim Russert basically let him get away with it. So much for the "liberal press."
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 12:56pm
And no wonder that, to this day, millions and millions of Americans actually believe that Saddam had something to do with the 9/11 attacks.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 12:58pm
And what was the recent poll that indicated that something like 80 or 85% of all American troops in Iraq believe that Saddam was behind or connected to 9/11? That's incredible, isn't it?
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 12:59pm
Frank -
Indeed, there is evidence of a few MEETINGS, but it is actually well-documented that nothing came of them.
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 1:58pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda
This provides numerous links to sources on the subject.
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 1:59pm
Hman,
I wouldn't be surprised if there was also a few meetings between Al Queda and other governments in that region as well. After all, they are always saying that Al Quda has presence in over 60 countries or whatever it is, and further, they get their money from somewhere, including, presumably, some governments (or segemnts thereof).
So we are going to go to war with every nation that has ever had so much as a contact or meeting with Al Queda? There are some besides Iraq, I'm sure.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 3:27pm
Frank -
Agreed. The record is pretty clear that it was bin Laden, if any, who was trying to strike up a relationship. Hussein balked.
Funny how to conservatives, any "meeting" between AQ and Iraq (no matter the outcome or subject-matter) is solid evidence sufficient to conclude a formal relationship between the two, yet when it comes to Abramoff and Bush meeting, it was just a photo-op - it doesn't prove anything! Just because Republicans took Abramoff's money doesn't mean anything either!
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 3:46pm
SKEETJR:
Is our dialogue over?
Already?
Posted by Hman23 at 03/21/2006 @ 4:21pm
Hman I have responded to you on the Nichols thread.
Posted by Frank Thomas at 03/21/2006 @ 4:31pm
My response to the posts following my latest one, dated 3-21-06 at 0109 are as follows:
Murtha's service in Vietnam, as heroic as it was, does not mean that he is automatically right about what to do in Iraq. In fact, his version of cut and run would provide Al Qaeda with the political victory they've been craving, the only one they could achieve in Iraq. So, despite his Vietnam experience, his advice would lead to another Tet Offensive, which failed militarily but succeeded politically. Therefore, Mr. Murtha is obviously a slow learner, who gleans nothing from past experiences, since he's more than willing to repeat the same mistake again.
Helen Thomas is a hard core, lock step, left wing ideologue, who is slavishy devoted to her dogma. She cares nothing about facts unless they support her left-wing agenda, no matter how biased, slanted, and cherry-picked those facts are.
Al Libi was not the only information source for the meetings that occurred between Al Qaeda and Iraqi government officials. In truth, the Feith report was based on multiple sources of information, as indicated in the following excerpts:
"According to press reports at the time, Faruq Hijazi, deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence, met with bin Laden in Afghanistan on December 21, 1998, to offer bin Laden safe haven in Iraq. CIA reporting in the memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee seems to confirm this meeting and relates two others.
15. A foreign government service reported that an Iraqi delegation, including at least two Iraqi intelligence officers formerly assigned to the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan, met in late 1998 with bin Laden in Afghanistan.
16. According to CIA reporting, bin Laden and Zawahiri met with two Iraqi intelligence officers in Afghanistan in Dec. 1998.
17. . . . Iraq sent an intelligence officer to Afghanistan to seek closer ties to bin Laden and the Taliban in late 1998. The source reported that the Iraqi regime was trying to broaden its cooperation with al Qaeda. Iraq was looking to recruit Muslim "elements" to sabotage U.S. and U.K. interests. After a senior Iraqi intelligence officer met with Taliban leader [Mullah] Omar, arrangements were made for a series of meetings between the Iraqi intelligence officer and bin Laden in Pakistan. The source noted Faruq Hijazi was in Afghanistan in late 1998.
18. . . . Faruq Hijazi went to Afghanistan in 1999 along with several other Iraqi officials to meet with bin Laden. The source claimed that Hijazi would have met bin Laden only at Saddam's explicit direction.
An analysis that follows No. 18 provides additional context and an explanation of these reports:
Reporting entries #4, #11, #15, #16, #17, and #18, from different sources, corroborate each other and provide confirmation of meetings between al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. None of the reports have information on operational details or the purpose of such meetings. The covert nature of the relationship would indicate strict compartmentation [sic] of operations.
Information about connections between al Qaeda and Iraq was so widespread by early 1999 that it made its way into the mainstream press. A January 11, 1999, Newsweek story ran under this headline: "Saddam + Bin Laden?" The story cited an "Arab intelligence source" with knowledge of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. "According to this source, Saddam expected last month's American and British bombing campaign to go on much longer than it did. The dictator believed that as the attacks continued, indignation would grow in the Muslim world, making his terrorism offensive both harder to trace and more effective. With acts of terror contributing to chaos in the region, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait might feel less inclined to support Washington. Saddam's long-term strategy, according to several sources, is to bully or cajole Muslim countries into breaking the embargo against Iraq, without waiting for the United Nations to lift if formally."
...and,
"According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting--the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes."
Even if a second phase of the bipartisan investigation were to occur, it would have a low probability of reprimanding administration officials, given the information I've cited in earlier posts, especially that based on the Duelfer Report and the captured Iraqi records.
Again, the 911 Commission overstepped its mandate in assessing the existence of an Iraq/Al Qaeda link for anything other than 911. Nevertheless, the Commission reported no definitive information linking Al Qaeda with Iraq. The operative word here is definitive, which means concrete. Such a determination does not take into account the overwhelming circumstantial evidence of a link (even an informal one, which would be serious in and of itself), not to mention the concrete evidence not available to (at the time), or reviewed by, the Commission. The same goes for the CIA's analysis of raw intelligence data going back some ten years.
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report, investigating the use of intelligence before the war, found no evidence that Administration officials had coerced CIA analysts into finding an Iraqi-Al Qaeda link.
Almost all the sources you cite in your attempt to discredit the case for war, predate mine and are based almost entirely on fragmentary evidence gathered before the war.
In comparison, my sources are among the most recent, and, unlike yours, are based on actual materials obtained from Iraq, including the captured Iraqi documents that have been translated to date. Therefore, my sources are far more relevant and accurate.
Though it is an exception, since it was produced before the war, several conclusions documented in the Feith memo were corroborated by information obtained since the war. As you know, this information is listed in one of my previous posts.
In the article, entitled "Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details," the diplomat told the U.S. that Iraq had large stocks of chemical munitions, even though we could not find them after the invasion. The fact that the diplomat told us of these weapons, something we could not verify until after the invasion - not before -, bolsters – not lessens – our basis for invading Iraq.
So your rebuttal proves the point I made in an earlier post. Specifically, those on the left actually do what they falsely accuse their political opponents of doing, cherry-picking data that supports their view and discard all the rest that does'nt.
Posted by skeetjr at 03/22/2006 @ 12:39am
Source of Feith Report Excerpts: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmx yz.asp?pg=2
Posted by skeetjr at 03/22/2006 @ 12:40am
SKEETJR:
You say: "Almost all the sources you cite in your attempt to discredit the case for war, predate mine and are based almost entirely on fragmentary evidence gathered before the war."
My response: First, evidence gathered BEFORE the war is central to the issue, if you are trying to argue that what we knew then provided justification for the war itself. It's pretty convenient for you to sweep all of the prior intelligence under the rug because it undercuts your point, but that is not how it works. The intelligence at the time the war was sold to the public was vital. You don't get to go to war based on insufficient intelligence and make your case later (which you have not done in any event).
Second, some of the key sources I cited came AFTER the war began: June 16, 2004 - the 9-11 Commission Report; January 28, 2004 - David Kay testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee; al-Libi recanted his claims in January 2004; in addition to the recent declassification of many documents referenced by Sen. Levin; intelligence indicating that Curveball was not credible. Even the recent news of AQ and Iraq's meetings (which show that even though meetings between individuals may have occurred at some point in the late 1990's, Hussein refused to have any formal relationship and balked).
Third, the evidence I cited is hardly fragmentary. Not surprising that you make your point simply by stating it in a conclusory fashion – without an attempt to support your wild claim with any examples. Something isn't true just because you say it - you need to back it up. The 9/11 Commission Report, the various NIEs, reports of the CIA and DIA, Richard Clark's report, and the others I cited. Do you think these were just written up as a stream of consciousness without any documentary or testimonial evidence to support it? Go look up the cites within each. And fragmentary – that is the pot calling the kettle black when you consider your argument is based solely on CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence that there were "meetings" – with a heavy reliance on Iraqi sources with a proven track record of lying to advance a personal agenda.
I have not cherry-picked any data. I responded to yours. You have ignored mine. So keep your head in the sand. I am done.
Posted by Hman23 at 03/22/2006 @ 11:10am
In response to HMAN23:
In my earliest post, I cited evidence (not assertions but facts) gathered before the invasion, indicating some degree of Iraqi-Al Qaeda interaction and cooperation. Evidence gathered since the invasion, some of which has been interpreted, confirms this linkage. So our basis for invading Iraq due to an Iraqi - Al Qaeda link and the danger it posed to our country, especially since Al Qaeda declared war on us and was trying to obtain WMD to execute the war, was correct.
Prior to the invasion, information from multiple intelligence agencies, U.S., U.K., Germany, Russia, Jordan, and Egypt (to name a few)all agreed that Iraq had WMD and WMD programs. In a recent NY Times article, Saddam's own generals, part of his inner circle, all believed he had WMD and WMD programs, both of which were prohibited by the 18 U.N. resolutions that Saddam ignored. All this prewar information is definitive, while yours is cherry-picked information that is not definitive. After the invasion, we found no WMD but did find a nascent WMD program (including banned missiles) that he was in the process of rebuilding by using money skimmed from Oil For Food and smuggling in equipment banned by the U.N. Also, as Duelfer showed, he had almost defeated the sanctions, making them worthless and would rapidly reconstitute his WMD, once the sanctions were gone. So, with the exception of stockpiled WMD,our pre-war basis of invading Iraq because of its WMD programs was vindicated.
In comparison, all the information we gathered before and after the war totally discredits the left's assertions that our invasion of Iraq was unnecessary. It also strips away whatever flimsy rationale the left used to justify its criticism of our current policies, laying bare its illogical and unhinged hatred of the president and anything that smacks of conservatism.
Because you have nothing of any substance to offer in return, you're done. But more like the "stick a fork in him, he's done" variety of being done.
Posted by skeetjr at 03/22/2006 @ 12:30pm
SKEETJR:
So we are back to WMD?
"So, with the exception of stockpiled WMD,our pre-war basis of invading Iraq because of its WMD programs was vindicated."
A pretty glaring exception considering that was the primary basis for selling the war to the public - not weapons related program activities.
So my evidence is not "definitive" on WMD, but you don't need to come up with "concrete" evidence re: links between al Queda and Iraq, only circumstantial. So, who is cherry-picking again?
Posted by Hman23 at 03/22/2006 @ 2:18pm
In response to HMAN23:
Yes, the lack of WMD was a glaring omission. So much so, that it surprised all the countries that believed Iraq had WMD. But even so, it is not valid to assert that we had no basis for invasion, or that Bush lied, when several countries agreed that Iraq had WMD and the Iraqi diplomat, presented in your previous post, told us that Iraq had chemical weapons. Nor is it valid to say we had no basis for the invasion, if Iraq had no WMD but still had WMD programs and was rebuilding them. Ensuring Iraq had no WMD is only ˝ the solution. The remainder is ensuring that Iraq won't make or use them again, otherweise were back where we started, with a megalomaniac and sociopath with WMD and history of using them and likely to use them again, given his penchant for conquest and spectacular inability to gauge the foreign response. After all, Saddam said his only mistake in invading Kuwait was not having a nuclear bomb! Given all this information, Saddam isn't the kind of guy, who will not make WMD, simply because he doesn't have them now, especially since Duelfer said he would make them.
Which is especially troubling, since there is concrete, including circumstantial, evidence that Saddam was working with terroirists, who wanted WMD to use against us. This concrete evidence included:
Zaraqawi's numerous visits to Baghad, where he had his own office, was treated in a hospital run by one of Saddam's sons, and was accompanied by several of his followers;
Iraq's work with Ansr El Islam, an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in northern Iraq;
Zarqawi's promise, originally reported in the Feith memo, that he was setting up terrorist cells in Iraq and would activate them if the Americans invaded.
Our capture of a courier, Hassan Ghul, who was carrying a CD from Zarqawi, asking for Al Qaeda to send reinforcements;
Captured Iraqi documentation, some of which has been translated, showing that
Saddam was supporting and training terrorist groups, at least two of which were Al Qaeda affiliates;
As early as 1999 was training and planning the "Saddam Feyadeen" to assasinate political opponents abroad and carry out attacks on targets in the west
This is just a few examples of concrete evidence. As the Iraqi documents are translater, there undoubtedly will be more.
Posted by skeetjr at 03/23/2006 @ 1:53pm