The usual suspects were on the bandwagon all along

I'm tired of going around in circles on this. I'm answering the same questions over and over.

Michael,
how can you support the war on the grounds of 9/11 if, as Bush himself has admitted, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

You're a funny guy. Unintentionally so - but funny none-the-less.

Please:

a) Provide proof of these "strong connections." In fact, I will make it easy for you - just provide some evidence. Concrete evidence, of course, not some second hand report of some guy who believes it.

b) Explain why the Bush Administration has never stated that Saddam Hussien has connections to Sept 11th.

c) Demonstrate that the terrorist connections of Saddam Hussien were greater than those of other Arab nations. For example, Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers were from and where Bin Laden himself was born.

I cannot believe the bold ignorance with which you state your claims. Hussien conspiring with Al-Qaida is a claim so patently ridiculous that President Bush himself - through the months of hard campaigning to make his case for war - never once claimed it. You asserted in an earlier post that Democrats were counting on the "gullibility" of Liberals. It is, in fact, the gullibility of the general American populace that President Bush is counting on. Even though nobody in his administration even claimed it - 70% of Americans believe there was a direct connection between Sept 11th and Hussien.

Now, I can understand why most Americans would think that. Too be blunt, it is because most Americans are completely ignorant of world affairs. Upwards of 90% of them cannot even identify Iraq on a map, never mind distinguish between Saddam Hussien and Al-Qaida. To the average American they are both "enemies" and that is where the distinction ends. You, Michael, are of a rare breed though. You see, you are obviously interested in politics because you post here - which makes your ignorance all the more astounding.

First of all, Al-Qaida is an Islamic Fundamentalist movement while Saddam Hussien is the exact opposite of what they are trying to create - he is a secular Arab dictatorship. Secondly, on several occasions Osama Bin Laden spoke openly about his disdain for Saddams government and advocated its overthrow. The list goes on...

Have fun providing the non-existant evidence I asked for.

About Clinton's actions concerning Saddam, Clinton ordered air strikes on military and security targets, and suspected WMD sites, because "Saddam Hussein [had] announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors, called UNSCOM," he stated in his Dec. 16, 1998 post-attack speech.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec98/clinton_12-16.html

Clinton ordered air strikes because Hussein had flatly refused to comply with the UN demands.

Bush and Co. invaded Iraq because there was a discrepancy in a report provided by the Hussein regime to UNMOVIC, while complying with UN weapons inspections.

Clinton did not say that Hussein had WMD. He said the attacks were designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver WMD.

Given the circumstances and evidence, which one of the two acted more prudently (prudence--Bush Sr's key virtue)?

But, the UN arguments are moot. We all now know that the UN resolutions were a pretext for war for the Bush Administration. The Bush Admin. wanted war, the Bush Admin. got their war.

Like I said, you guys aren't reading all of the posts and I'm tired of answering the same questions over and over.

Translation: I have provided no real evidence in any of my previous replies, and since no real evidence exists, I have nothing more to add.

You have made one attempt to support your claim - citing the memo. However, as Nimh so readily pointed out, that was a list of 50 pieces of raw data collected over a period of ten years. Michael, you have provided no real evidence so far and you have left several important questions unanswered (a few of which were innumerated for your convenience in my previous post.) I'm still waiting.

Bush is the mass murderer. But the right wing scum blame everyone else so that they feel better. They're the cancer of modern society.

Bush admitted that there was no link between Iraq and 9/11, Michael. How can you claim any links if the president himself discounts any purported links? Are you saying Bush is gullable?

Bush doesn't have the intelligence to manage gullible. It's a conservative trait.

That's not really the right translation either. The proper translation would be no matter what I give some of you, it gets disputed for credibility but you'll stand by your own biased sources. The burden of proof is the hard one, it's easy to say the link doesn't exist. But, every time evidence is brought to your attention, it gets shot down as raw data by some intelligence analyst. I feel like I'm in a courtroom with one psychologist saying the defendant's crazy and another one disputing it. Who's right? The one you want to believe.

Ironically, every time a link has been established, it has been squashed by the media and hidden under the pile of articles written in retort.

Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi Intelligence Officer taken into custody back in July tells interrogators no meeting between him and Mohamed Atta ever took place. The media believes this whole-heartedly on his word, no dispute. Like he'd tell the truth.

Yet, strong evidence from Czech intelligence say the meeting in Prague did in fact take place. Vice President Dick Cheney, Interview with NBC's Tim Russert, Sunday, Sept. 14, 2003.

Atta flew American Flight 11 into the World Trade Center on 9/11.

"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida."
President Bush, State of the Union Speech, Jan. 28, 2003.

But, not disputed is the two captured planners of the 9/11 attacks, Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have both reportedly denied Iraqi involvement during interrogations. Of course they do.

Iraq harbored a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Statement to the U.N. Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003.


And rather uniquely, a strong opposition to any link between Osama and Saddam makes a common sense argument that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida share a pathological hatred of the United States, so it's entirely possible that they collaborated, even if we don't know how. David Plotz, a Slate's Washington editor, has long endured to write article after article opposing any and all claims of a link between Osama and Saddam. Yet, he helps us understand why most Americans believe or want to believe that a tie exists.

All totally ignoring the fact that for a year beforehand all we heard about was the WMD's that Iraq possessed and which was the reason for the war. Since they haven't found any, they need to find another excuse for mass murder, and the theft of another nation's wealth. Any old excuse will do, no matter how far fetched.

Mike wrote:


God, I love the internet.

Transcript: All emphasis mine 'J"
MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don't know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn't have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we've learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93. And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in '93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we've had the story that's been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we've never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know.[/U]

Cheney's answer doesn't seem so strong. He continues later in answer to a question about 9/11 and the Saudis to make again the assertion that there was a connection between a WTC bomber from 1993 and the Iraqi government, maybe that's what you heard.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, both the CIA and the FBI continue to stand by their Atta timeline. No April meeting.

I stand with my biased source -- Dick Cheney.

much love
Joe

Well, I just answered your post at length last night, dealing in some detail with the source you suggested - yet you ignored all that.

I always wonder about that - many conservatives here do it (perhaps progressives too). They state their theories. Their theories get dissected by a serious responder, and then there's, say, Pistoff being pissed off at them. A great many of them - apparently you, too - then prefer to continue arguing with Pistoff, an argument they can more easily win (sorry, Pistoff), and ignore the more serious responses. Same happened on this thread before with ebrown_p's posts. Fine, but to then in the end go, 'I'm tired of discussing with all you, cause you're not serious', is a bit pathetic.

For us its frustrating, too, to keep having the same endless discussions. I mean, sure, you got a theory about how a Saddam/Al-Qaeda link would be plausible because both "share a pathological hatred of the United States". But as long as you keep bringing up stuff like this for evidence:


... you're making a very strong impression that the suspicion of plausibility is all you have. I mean, for God's sake, the Czech government itself had already withdrawn its initial statement on this, stating it was based on a misunderstanding, shortly after the news was first spread. Thats why everyone fell over Cheney when he again alluded to it: because it was so blatantly wrong - and it was so blatantly easy for any reporter to find out.

And this stuff is all over the net and A2K - why do we have to shoot it down yet again? Why can't you just doublecheck your own sources before you state another 'certainty'? I mean, I for one have gotten pretty jaded about having to quote the same official denials about the same dubious allegations again like I'm some conspiracy theory debunker who yet again has to explain that, no, there is no proof of an FBI conspracy behind the JFK murder, and Wellstone wasn't murdered either.

Hell, you might be guessing on the right plausibility - though one can just as equally speculate the opposite, since another thing Saddam's and Osama's men shared, after all, was a pathological opposition to each other. But as long as the best you can come up with is inconsistent, error-riddled raw data from the Weekly Standard, which on the net hasnt gotten further than WorldNetDaily and ChristianNews, then no, please dont expect us to suddenly become bowled over by it. And no, to blame the "liberal media bias" for lack of acknowledgement of the WS "news" is bizarre, since they'd easily have come out with the news if the government had had some official statement about corroborated proof of the Saddam/Osama link - a statement that did not need to be withdrawn by discrete press release two days later, preferably. Its exactly this practice of leaking unchecked allegations to friendly media that can easily be disproven upon research, that has made the media extremely reluctant to pick up on yet another of these stories.

As soon as the government comes out with an official presentation of confirmed proof, rather than using stuff thats already proven baseless (like the Atta/Prague link) to insinuate the link in some talkshow, you can be sure the media will report - hell, this is the story of the year, after all! But that hasnt happened. Nuff said. In the meantime, with the Weekly Standard in one hand and the Daily Telegraph in the other, you people are the equivalent of the CommonDreams folk, who, "evidence" in hand, complain about how "the media" ignore the truth of "how Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand".

Well said nimh, as usual.

The boy's facility with this language is, now and again, quite decent. One wonders if he grew up speaking it or if he has one of those Gibsonish wetware implants.

Hmmm..Netherlands..wetware...hmm.....

"wetware implants" ... now there's one for the "ooohh that sounds dirty" thread ... <g>

Incidently, have you read Lyda Moorehouse?

HAHAHAHA
Hey, I don't mind if my cyber persona is tied to the whippin' post, as long as it's not the real world, me. :wink: