THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

I'm not sure how reliable this source is, but I'll provide it anywho. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=485407

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ican711nm wrote:

In my lexicon one lies when one says something one knows or believes is probably untrue.

It comes as no surprixe to me that your lexicographical skills are lacking.

To lie means anything from to state a falsehood to knowingly deceive. It imputes dishonesty but does not require it.

Ultimately, liying through ignorance and lying through a desire to deceive have the same result. I'm not too concerned with the motives here, just the result.

The result was a lie.

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I have not and will not lie in this or any other forum.

False, in fact this statement itself is a lie, and I suspect of the dishonest variety.

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I have been assuming and do now continue to assume the same is true for you.

This is truthful, you do rely on assumption a great deal.

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I claim the Bush Administration did not act unlawfully when they decided to invade and did invade Iraq. They did not violate any domestic or international laws. They did not violate any treaties to which the US is a signatory. And, they did exactly what they sincerely thought was the right thing to do.

I guess that you assert this without knowlege of what would be unlawful. My guess is that your desire to consider it lawful creates a situation in which you rely merely on your own conviction without much of an idea of precisely what laws it would have had to pass muster.

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I am now confused about what your position is on this.

Just as you were in the inception of this exchange. It gets tedious.

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Even so, I have not encountered any evidence from you or anyone else that Bush did not decide to make and did actually make the decision to invade Iraq until well after 9/11.

You prevaricate yet again by moving your goalposts.

Initially you had claimed a specific month and year. Now merely an ambiguous "well after 9/11".

I can bring evidence to refute your initial claim of month and year. But you again move your goalposts and evidence doesn't seem to be as important to you as the strength of your conviction.

Since this is an insignificant matter I will not make any great attemt to dissuade you, as I am not in the habit of combating irrational, factually-baseless conviction. easpecially when it's the variety that moves the goalposts to elude the facts that inconvenience the position.

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I bet the reason for the delay was Bush's delay in recognizing that the invasion of Afghanistan was not going to turn out to be sufficient for eradicating Osama's and his Al Qaeda's threat to the security of "Americans everywhere."

I bet aliens abducted him and probed his anus and I bet that this was the reason. But my idea faces the same dearth of evidence that yours does.

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Whatever Bush's actual reason for delay, he did delay his decision and did not actually decide to invade Iraq until well after 9/11.

Upon what do you base this claim? Bush repeatedly said he had not made up his mind publically but this is widely disputed by persons close to the administration and the military.

I'm not going to waste time trying to prove a negative, I fully expect you to treat any refuting evidence I bring to the table with the same dismissal that the strength of your conviction has favored the other times.

So, I will invoke burden of proof and ask you to provide your factual basis for this claim.

Anytime you are ready Ican.

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It is my opinion that concern over when Bush actually made his decision is inconsequential if Bush's decision turns out to be the right decision.

I agree, and this is one reason I think this discussion fast approaches expiry.

The time at which the decision was made might, of course, lend insight into the motivations he had.

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If you or anyone else wishes to debate whether invading Iraq was probably in the interest of all Americans, I'll debate the affirmative recognizing that some here including you could possibly eventually come up with persuasive evidence that it is not in the interest of all Americans.

Been there, and done that. And with people who debate with intellectual integrity and honesty.

If it interests me, I will participate but at this time I have no plans to accept any extended invitation.

Should you be intersted, try to test your ideas in a mirror. While it's not a good bedfellow to "strength of conviction" sorts it is an insightful exercise.

Debate the other side :: Iraq

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Sofia wrote:

But, would you do me the courtesy of answering this question?

Yes. Which one? Kidding.

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If these sums do prove to be accurate, and if we do link the money to Putin, Chirac, Megawati, Galloway and others--do you still defend their votes--their representatives' votes?

I have no idea what you are thinking of when you say "defend their votes". Furthermore when you say "link to..." I do not know what your criteria is. I believe you have already claimed in the past that you have "linked" it. Even if you personally haven't others have.

So for the sake of simplicity let's just pretend we are on the same page as to the evidenciary standards for "link".

For some it means something as silly as "the knee-bone's connected to the head-bone" but I will answer assuming that the criteria for the link is acceptable to each of us.

If you are asking whether I'll continue to argue against the notion that their votes could have been compromised by corruption the answer is no.

If you are asking whether I will think their stated arguments are invalid the answer is that while I might indict the sincerity of their own use of them said corrupt insincerity would not invalidate any of the arguments they happened to use.

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Galloway's vitriolic attacks against Blair re his war stance?

I have little inclination to take on the burden of someone else's vitrol. Regardless of what you come up with.

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Or would you call their actions/votes/ representatives votes into question due to conflict of interest?

If the evidenciary standards (evidence of direct benefit to those in a position to decide on a vote, sufficient benefit to make the conflict of interest plausible) to assert that they were corrupt come forth I will cede their corruption and the strong circumstantial evidence toward conflict of interest.

Whether or not it is sufficient corruption to indict all those nation's positions is a separate question but it would be so powerful a bludgeon to find the corruption at all that it would be moot.

And the circumstantial evidence for conflict of interest would be strong (as opposed to now, when it involves quite a reach).

But ultimately we both know that no matter what comes forth, you are still left with an overwhelming majority of nations being opposed who you can't discredit with the OFF corruption. So it would not, of course, magically render arguments against the war invalid but merely specific individual's positions compromised through a strong possibility of conflict of interest.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

It comes as no surprixe to me that your lexicographical skills are lacking.

To lie means anything from to state a falsehood to knowingly deceive. It imputes dishonesty but does not require it.

Ultimately, liying through ignorance and lying through a desire to deceive have the same result. I'm not too concerned with the motives here, just the result.

The result was a lie.

Please present your evidence to support your contentions in the above quote. I am making the same request you frequently make of others. Now it's your turn to live up to your own self-declared standards.

Craven de Kere wrote:

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="ican711nm"]I have not and will not lie in this or any other forum.

False, in fact this statement itself is a lie, and I suspect of the dishonest variety.

Please present your evidence to support your contentions in the above quote. I am making the same request you frequently make of others. Now it's your turn to live up to your own self-declared standards.

Craven de Kere wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
Even so, I have not encountered any evidence from you or anyone else that Bush did not decide to make and did actually make the decision to invade Iraq until well after 9/11.

You prevaricate yet again by moving your goalposts.

Initially you had claimed a specific month and year. Now merely an ambiguous "well after 9/11".

Please present your evidence to support your contentions in the above quote. I am making the same request you frequently make of others. Now it's your turn to live up to your own self-declared standards.

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Thank you.

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Sofia wrote:

Craven, most people thought the pardon of Rich (and a few others) was horrible, pre-OFF scandal.
Did you?

Yes. I was not stateside at the time and I was shocked.

It was so blatant that I had a hard time believing it.

I discussed it with Brazilian doctors, professors, businessmen and politicians to illustrate that we too have our corruptions.

But this brings important context, America has a very anti-corruption culture.

In poor nations corruption is part of the cost of life. It's so corrupt that corruption becomes more normal than an oddity.

It is simply understood that the corruption is a part of the negotiation.

Corruption in the EFF program does not surprise me. Any time that exclusivity like that is made it artificially inflates the values of anything involved and in that artificial inflation is slush money.

It would have surprised me to find out that there was no corruption.

And frankly before the war started we all (anyone who paid attention) knew of the corruption.

The US turned a blind eye to a lot of it so that we could focus the sanctions on weapons and keeping dual-use stuff out of Iraq. We had a veto on all of those contracts but we were not interested.

Much more blatant oil abuse from Iraq existed than the EFF program with illegal pipelines to neighbours like syria.

While trying to build a coalition for the war we approached these people who had vested interests (debt, money, oil) in Iraq and tried to work with them to get their support.

We offered some packages of our own and some refused.

Syria was told that their cheap oil deal from Iraq was going to end one way or the other (they recently said that the pipeline "seems to have" dried up) and we recognzied their fragile economy at the time and their concerns about losing the oil deal.

They were not interested.

That is an example of corruption in regard to Iraqi oil on a much larger scale and a case can be made that while corrupt their motivations for opposing the war were beyond mere materia self-interest.

We offered material self-interest to many nations and they refused.

My own pet conspiracy theory is that these well known issues are being thrust to "scandal" status for political capital but I have no more evidence for this than I do for the anal probe thing.

But I do think there is a bit of a sanctimonious edge to your complaint.

We explicitly offered "chequebook diplomacy" deals to people to support the war.

Hell Turkey balked over not getting the right price.

Do you indict all motivations for the war as invalid due to the very clear, obvious, stated and undenied material interests?

I mean, it's damn easy to say we did this for our interests in oil and that nations were bribed and all that but I avoid it.

I believe that the admin's reasons were not motivated by material self-interest, even if there is currently as strong a case to make that they themselves had a conflict of interest.

I see the attempt to write off the UN and the dissent to America as being motivated by much more than just the EFF program.

Ever since I met you years ago you've been indicting the UN.

So if the thrust of your questions are whether I will share your nearly unfailingly-opposed-to-the-UN stance it is unlikely, as that has more to do with differences of ideology itself than mere corruption scandals.

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If Saddam bribed France with money, the US also tried to bribe Turkey with money. One for war, and the other against war. I would rate "bribe against war" as on a higher 'ethical' plain.

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So if the thrust of your questions are whether I will share your nearly unfailingly-opposed-to-the-UN stance it is unlikely, as that has more to do with differences of ideology itself than mere corruption scandals.
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ARGH! This kind of thinking KILLS me. When people are so busy trying to avoid what may come next, they avoid the question at hand. Like abortion and gun-control. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Craven, this is partisanship. You've picked 'your side' and are loathe to address issues that may lead to an opposer's validated opinion. (Though you did address it, and I thank you.)

True, I have long criticised the UN. And, when I can be proven wrong on a point, I cop. I agreed that the US benefits financially by housing the UN. I reversed. I also reversed on dismantling it, owing to appreciation for a few of it's subsidiary groups, and the fact that whatever replaces it, would eventually look like what we have now.

For some on A2K, the reticence of members to address this scandal has been mind-boggling.

The UN can be held to account for this scandal, without me or others expecting A2K members' criticism of them to equal contempt.

(Our overtures to Turkey were discussed in the light of day--and weren't illegal.)

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ican711nm wrote:

Please present your evidence to support your contentions in the above quote. I am making the same request you frequently make of others. Now it's your turn to live up to your own self-declared standards.

Sure thing. In fact I'll even use the reference you cited for part of it.

M-W says "lie" imputes dishonesty. But that's not the point of contention.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition by Houghton Mifflin Company lists both the intentional and the unintentional meaning of lie.

Here is their unintentional one:

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To convey a false image or impression: Appearances often lie.

You can't argue that "apprearances" have intent.

Anywho, look at the second definition that you youself quoted.

To lie is often understood to mean intentional deception but it also covers mere statement of falsehood.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

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="ican711nm"]I have not and will not lie in this or any other forum.

False, in fact this statement itself is a lie, and I suspect of the dishonest variety.

Please present your evidence to support your contentions in the above quote. I am making the same request you frequently make of others. Now it's your turn to live up to your own self-declared standards.

Most certainly.

This is a lie based on the fact that it is a falsehood and that stating falsehoods is to lie. It is a falsehood because you have stated falsehoods in this discussion earlier, thereby rendering your claim to have never lied a falsehood.

As to my statement that I suspect that it is also of the dishonest variety there is nothing I can give except the non-fallacious appeal to authority that I am, in fact, an authority on what I do and do not suspect.

So I tell you now. I suspect it is of the dishonest variety as well. I do not have means to assert this as fact and have therefore made no attempt to.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
Even so, I have not encountered any evidence from you or anyone else that Bush did not decide to make and did actually make the decision to invade Iraq until well after 9/11.

You prevaricate yet again by moving your goalposts.

Initially you had claimed a specific month and year. Now merely an ambiguous "well after 9/11".

Please present your evidence to support your contentions in the above quote. I am making the same request you frequently make of others. Now it's your turn to live up to your own self-declared standards.

My pleasure, but this is a silly request as your posts on these very pages can easily be looked up.

You started by claiming 9/11 as the motivation for the invasion of Iraq.

When evidence was brought to you that showed that there was plenty of motivation long before 9/11 you dismissed this citing that 3/2003 was the only point at which the decision to move on it was made.

Now it's a more ambigious "well after 9/11".

Personally, this is insignificant and if you would like this retracted feel free to consider it retracted. <shrugs> The degree of pravarication is not of great import to me and my mention was for the exclusive purpose of explaining any disinterest in the exchange that I may transmit.

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Sofia wrote:

So if the thrust of your questions are whether I will share your nearly unfailingly-opposed-to-the-UN stance it is unlikely, as that has more to do with differences of ideology itself than mere corruption scandals.
----------
ARGH! This kind of thinking KILLS me. When people are so busy trying to avoid what may come next, they avoid the question at hand. Like abortion and gun-control. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Craven, this is partisanship. You've picked 'your side' and are loathe to address issues that may lead to an opposer's validated opinion. (Though you did, and I thank you.)

My reluctance to join what I see as partisanship on your part is partisanship?

Ok. <shrugs>

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For some on A2K, the reticence of members to address this scandal has been mind-boggling.

Sofia, I think you confuse not giving conspiracy theories much import with "reticence".

I've paid a lot more attention to this conspiracy theory than, say, Tartarin and Wolf's theories about American involvement in 9/11.

Personally, I think your objection is tantamount to saying that people are not placing as much credence in it as you.

And personally, I think that's understandable.

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(Our overtures to Turkey were discussed in the light of day--and weren't illegal.)

Yes, but they are still a clear case of self-interest. Does the involvement of self-interest invalidate the arguments for the war?

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Christian aid fuel suspicion over Iraq -28/6/04

The US-controlled coalition in Baghdad is about to hand over power to an Iraqi government without having properly accounted for what it has done with some billion of Iraq's own money, says a new report published by Christian Aid.

An audit, reportedly critical, of the coalition's handling of Iraqi revenues is not going to be delivered until mid-July - after the coalition has ceased to exist.

Christian Aid believes this situation is in flagrant breach of the UN Security Council resolution that gave control of Iraq's oil revenues and other Iraqi funds to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

"For the entire year that the CPA has been in power in Iraq, it has been impossible to tell with any accuracy what the CPA has been doing with Iraq's money," said Helen Collinson, head of policy at Christian Aid.

Resolution 1483 of May 2003 said that Iraq's oil revenues should be paid into the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), that this money should be spent in the interests of the Iraqi people, and be independently audited. But it took until April 2004 to appoint an auditor - leaving only a matter of weeks to go through the books.

Early reports of the audit indicate strong criticisms of the CPA's handling of Iraq's money. But the CPA is not going to be around to be held accountable.

In the run-up to the handover, nearly billion of Iraq's money has been hastily allocated. The new Iraqi government will be committed to these spending decisions.

The lack of anything more than basic information about the CPA's spending of Iraq's funds is in stark contrast to the information on the US.4 billion of US taxpayers' money that is also being spent in Iraq. No less than four separate audits of the US funds are underway.

All this sets a very bad precedent for the incoming Iraqi government according to the aid agency.

"Too many oil-rich countries go down the road of unaccountable government, riches for the few, and poverty for the many. Iraq can avoid this route, but only by ensuring transparency," said Ms Collinson.

Iraq's oil represents huge potential wealth. With half of the population still unemployed, the Iraqi people need to be able to see that the oil revenues are being spent to alleviate poverty and to improve their lives.

In October 2003 Christian Aid revealed that an astonishing billion of Iraq's oil revenues and other funds were unaccounted for. That report, Iraq: The Missing Billions, called for much greater clarity and for a thorough audit - which even at that time was months overdue.

Since then, the CPA has provided more information about what it is doing with Iraq's oil revenues. But, the aid agency says, it is still 'woefully inadequate'.

It is still not known exactly how Iraq's money has been earned, which companies have won the contracts that it has been spent on, or whether this spending was in the interests of the Iraqi people.

A senior UN diplomat told Christian Aid; "We only have the total amounts and movements in and out of the DFI. We have absolutely no knowledge of what purposes they are for, and if these are consistent with the security council resolution."

Iraqi construction companies charge about a tenth of what their US counterparts do. It was only in April 2004 - almost a year after the CPA took control of Iraq's oil revenues and started awarding contracts - that it belatedly began to reserve any contract from the DFI worth less than US 0,000 for Iraqi companies.

"What has the coalition got to hide by not making such information available for Iraq's own money? Is it putting the cash to the best use for the people of Iraq? Or is it still rewarding US companies with lucrative contracts?" said Ms Collinson.

Experts agree that it is almost impossible to work out what Iraq is earning from oil. Two different CPA documents give different figures for the oil revenue in the year to the end of May. One says billion. The other says .5 billion. Christian Aid attempted its own calculation of Iraq's oil revenue using publicly available figures and came up with billion.

Assessing Iraq's oil revenue is made so difficult because Iraq's oil production is still not being metered, as is standard industry practice. The CPA appears to have failed to prioritise a task that should form the bedrock of transparency over oil revenues.

Christian Aid is calling on the CPA to provide enough information so that Iraqis can see how their oil revenue has been earned and exactly how it is being spent - and for the UK government to use its influence as part of the CPA to make sure that this happens. We are also calling on the new Iraqi government, and the elected governments that will follow it, to be fully transparent about oil revenues and how they are spent.

Source

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Thanks walter, I'd just seen the piece and was going to note it. But you beat me.

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blatham wrote:

But you beat me.

Nota bene: by hours, not literally! :wink:

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Don't wink at me, you germanic bastard.

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'Blink' it is, blatham, lighthouses 'blink', 'flash' ... but never 'wink'.

SMs (that's 'signalmen', you master of hidden agenda) could/can 'wink' (and master navigators, like this poster).

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Master navigator? I am envious, being master of nothing, contrary to your description. I can't quit smoking, I get erections in the most inconvenient situations, and my 20 year old daughter has so many piercings that I actually concerned that the earth's magnetic field will be altered.

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Quote:

United Kingdom
George Galloway, member of Parliament: 19 million
Mujaheddin Khalq: 36.5 million

Galloway's loud attacks against Blair and Bush and the war are a matter of public record. His behavior is consistent with one, who was paid off and worked hard toward Saddam's purposes

Sofia I was only half joking when I said Galloway could sue you for repeating this libel. So now I'm more than half serious...don't keep repeating this stuff. The documents were forged, didn't you read the Christian Science Monitor apology I posted?

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Is that an explanation for attributing meanings into my posts that couldn't possibly have been derived from them? I apologize if I guessed wrong on your purpose. What was the purpose then? Do you mind sharing?

I may have made a small error when I took a meaning from something you had written, to the effect that "you can bitch all you like about whether the war was legal or not...". I took a meaning from that, unwarranted in retrospect, that you yourself thought it does not matter whether the war was legal or not.
I must say in my own defence though, that previous gung-ho statements from you reinforced that opinion. Can you say that the inference was wrong?
At any rate, the actual text does not support my contention. I am happy to withdraw it.

Sorry for delay, have been away.

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I'm afraid the joke's on you Steve; this new set of allegations is totally unrelated to and unaffected by the Galloway vs Times/CSM matter you reference. The provenance of the documentation currently at issue is unsuspect, apart from from its being corroborated by multiple independently derived documentation and testimony, as has been mentioned earlier in this discussion. If anything, recent discoveries validate many of the earlier claims for which the Times and the CSM were chastized, and this snowball is still growing.

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Steve's right, Sofia continues to post a list that has been, in at least some cases, proven to be based on forgery.

If that makes the joke "on him" well then I guess that's supposed to mean a good thing.

Sofia's posting apocryphal drek, Steve is correcting it. Timber is ignoring the simple factual correction to exhibit a partisan disregard for facts.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

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