THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

I think the thread was blocked because someone called someone else an ignoramous. That comment is no longer here. If they blocked all the threads that went off topic, they'd all be blocked.

Bush and Co. were (and are) very careful to shape their statements so that later on, when the heat comes down, they can deny everything they said earlier and not seem like liars.

It's not a coincidence. Rove, especially, knows exactly what he is doing.

The attempts by conservatives to excuse the statements of their leaders now that they have been proven catastrophically incorrect is nothing but our usual partisan boilerplate. The only difference is that their leaders are doing a great job making every single statement, every public appearance, about two words: plausible deniability.

Cycloptichorn

Kerry and Co. were (and are) very careful to shape their statements so that later on, when the heat comes down, they can deny everything they said earlier and not seem like liars.

It's not a coincidence. McAuliffe, especially, knows exactly what he is doing.

The attempts by liberals to excuse the statements of their leaders now that they have been proven catastrophically incorrect is nothing but our usual partisan boilerplate. The only difference is that their leaders are doing a great job making every single statement, every public appearance, about two words: plausible deniability.

Ok, so now let's quit exchanging horse-shoes or whatever.

I claim that Bush and his administration were truly convinced that al Qaeda were being sheltered in Iraq and had access to the Saddams' toxic chemical and bacterial stuff (i.e., WMD). This convinced them they had at least as much justification for invading Iraq as they had for invading Afghanistan 17 months earlier. I have encountered zero evidence they were not so convinced.

I am convinced you too have zero evidence they were not so convinced.

I'm also convinced that toxic stuff stopped being located in Iraq at the time of, or before, Powell's UN speech to the contrary, but at that time no one in the Bush Administration had convincing evidence that that toxic stuff was no longer in Iraq.

I'm convinced that they wanted to be convinced. Every piece of evidence shows that the current admin wanted justification for a war in Iraq.

When you look for evidence hard enough, you generally find it.... especially when you consistently ignore the counter-arguments to your justifications. THAT'S what happened; ignoring the evidence that didn't fit the neo-con model for what needed to happen in the region.

Cycloptichorn

p.s. Icann, despite your attempt to switch the argument around, even you must realize that the Republicans are much, much better at it! Which doesn't make it right; it just makes it much more effective.

oh, I don't remember that remark. Must not have been made to me or I would have. :wink:

You are not correct in being convinced that the Bush administration had every reason to believe what they were saying.

http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/03-18-04/discussion.cgi.11.html

"In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program."
Source: Morning Edition, NPR (1/22/2004).

Explanation This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.

The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq
Vice President Richard Cheney on Nuclear Capabilities:

"[T]he reporting that we had prior to the war this time around was all consistent with that -- basically said that he had a chemical, biological and nuclear program, and estimated that if he could acquire fissile material, he could have a nuclear weapon within a year or two."
Source: Transcript of interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Rocky Mountain News (1/9/2004).

Explanation This statement was misleading because it failed to acknowledge the intelligence community's deep division on the issue of whether Iraq was actively pursuing its nuclear program. The statement also failed to mention weeks of intensive inspections conducted directly before the war in which United Nations inspectors found no sign whatsoever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program. In addition, it failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: "There 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."

I personally feel that we have established that the administration had reasons to doubt the truth of what they were claiming before the war and I am through with trying to find evidence and sources for it.

Life is just too short.

See there Revel? You've bolded an important point. Saddam's Iraq had an obligation to provide "reliable information on whether Iraq"... and failed to do so.

How do you provide information on something that isn't there, Bill?

Cycloptichorn

DISTINGUISHED PRESIDENT

Mr Bush is distinguished as being the worst incumbent of that office in the history of the USA.

Purely Political
© Charles D. Hayes

In all of the years I've been publishing this newsletter, I've tried to tone down my political bias, although my position (which can be left, right or center) is often unmistakably clear. There'll be no toning down this time. If this is not a prime moment to take a stand, then there is no point in taking one in the future about anything. I believe the stakes in the current presidential race are far too important.

Before 9/11, I thought George W. Bush was an intellectually impoverished individual, unfit for performing the duties of president. Now, I'm quite certain of it. I wonder how anyone who watched the presidential debate on September 30th could feel comfortable calling George W. Bush our commander-in-chief. Someday, I suspect, a popular consensus will characterize the year 2001 as a time when an uninformed man with a bullhorn was mistaken for a world leader.

In general parlance, George W. Bush is incapable of uttering five consecutive non-scripted sentences without sounding like a complete fool. When he does venture into an unintended ad lib, he very often repeats the key words used in the first sentence with an added emphasis. He seems to think that if he says the word nation with a bigger N sound, it will make his point more forcefully. Even strong Bush supporters with a few drinks under their belt will admit they cringe when the man speaks. Indeed, the number of absurdities spewing forth from the president because of his inability to speak above a kindergarten level has reached multiple volume book length. This explosion of inane articulation is so disturbing it's seldom mentioned in the press?-not, I suspect, because of some conspiracy but because the subject is so embarrassing that to deal with it in depth would reveal beyond doubt that the current president of the United States is, in fact, incompetent. Of course, there are many inarticulate people who are nevertheless capable in a wide array of professions. I can accept something like "our children is learning" from my local Wal-Mart manager, but not from the U.S. president. But let's put aside the Bushisms for a moment and look at his demeanor and his actions instead of his words.

George W. Bush is anti-intellectual to the bone. His lack of curiosity is legendary. During his first presidential campaign his wife joked that he thought a bibliography was a book about the Bible. I didn't think the remark was funny then, and I still don't. Bush has skated through life and a long succession of failed business ventures (funded with other people's money) surrounded by cronies who continuously tell him how great he is simply because of his proximity to the political power of his father. He is so well connected that he has the benefit of an Ivy League college degree without possessing the knowledge that goes with it. All he did at Yale was to show up, at least some of the time. Is there anyone, anywhere, who believes he buckled down and did the work? His ignorance is easily provable: just question him on anything about which he hasn't been coached. Hell, does coaching even help?

President Bush is said to be a real "people person." Some media pundits seem to think his use of nicknames for subordinates is cute, but in point of fact, this behavior is an exercise of disrespect and a means of bullying. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has described his old boss's behavior at cabinet meetings as that of a "blind man in a room full of deaf people."

Bush criticizes his opponent for flip-flopping on the issues, and yet he is guiltier of saying one thing and doing another than any president in my lifetime. "No child left behind" in practice means the opposite. He said he would protect the environment, while in reality he has virtually given business the go-ahead to do as it pleases and the environment be damned. He was against the 9/11 Commission and caved under pressure. He says he is a wartime president and that he will protect the homeland. Initially he was adamantly against the idea of homeland security; then he flip-flopped. Now he uses homeland security as a perpetual sound bite, but our homeland is anything but secure. Indeed, many of our major cities still lack the basic communications and civil defense equipment necessary to respond effectively to major emergencies.

Bush said he would champion the working class, but work is systematically becoming more and more subordinate to capital. Working people pay an ever larger share of taxes while capital is increasingly free of taxes. Not only that, but Bush's ideological compatriots have zeroed in on methods to escape paying overtime while allowing credit card companies to overhaul bankruptcy laws and encouraging the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign shores as a healthy business practice. His prescription drug benefit for seniors is in reality a windfall for pharmaceutical companies.

George W. Bush was elected (well almost) by an anti-intellectual constituency, and now they have precisely what they asked for. We would be the laughing stock of the whole bloody world but for the fact that his foreign policy arouses such contempt. He said he was against nation building, but he is attempting it on the grandest scale since the Marshall Plan. He said he would bring the world together, and yet our foreign policy is a shambles and our reputation as a just nation has been shredded. He insisted Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when in fact they did not. Then, when North Korea says they have nuclear weapons, he doubts the claim. The imagined threat Iraq posed was so dire that we had to go to war immediately. And yet, we do nothing while the North Koreans (and possibly even Iran) build nuclear arsenals and essentially thumb their noses at us. Our inept, ready, shoot, aim foreign policy has played into the hands of our enemies, giving them exactly what they want: a world sharply divided and one in which the recruitment of terrorists grows exponentially. Even a great advertising campaign could not have enlisted terrorists as effectively as our fumbling has encouraged. We have gone from being one of the most respected countries in the world to being one of the most despised.

Possibly the most disturbing aspect of the Bush Administration, however, is its refusal to admit to mistakes. Suppose for a moment that your best friend is diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her leg. If it is not removed quickly she will die. You rush her to the hospital. She is examined and they operate immediately. Bad news: they removed the wrong leg. She is rushed back to surgery the next day and they take the other leg off and thus save her life. You are glad she will live and furious about the mistake. But now, every time you seek answers about how the error could have occurred you are asked if you are glad the cancer is gone. You say yes, but my friend lost a leg she shouldn't have. In reply the authorities say, "Well, if it were up to you, she would still have the cancer." Does this kind of twisted logic remind you of anything? Of course, the only way to compare this analogy to the war in Iraq would be to have discovered that your friend did not have cancer at all.

Truth by association is George W. Bush's biggest strength. His constituency is made up of millions of people who support him because they think he is "one of us." They do not reason about what he will do or indeed about what he has done. They relate to him in the same way that my eighty-year-old mother does. She is upset about the fact that the government cannot negotiate to lower the price of prescription drugs, but she does not hold Bush accountable for his drug policy. Instead she says she will vote for him because he is a "good Christian man." And this is precisely why the empty language Bush uses on the campaign trail is so effective. His cadre of clichés and platitudes are wrapped in code words that help people who live their truth by association differentiate between "us" and "them."

Unfortunately it has become cliché to say that it's time to take back our government from special interests. But then, what else can we say? I'm not naïve enough to conclude that such a reversal will happen simply with a change in administrations, but without a change, there is virtually no chance at all. None. Zero. Zip. Corporate interests are growing more and more powerful under the present administration while the rights of working people are increasingly eroded. Even the right of average citizens to redress grievances through the courts is under siege. Bush harps continually about "junk lawsuits." But his definition of junk is reserved for actions taken by ordinary people against powerful organizations.

The problem of reelection has dramatically shifted the tactics of the Bush Administration, but if you think the first four years has been bad on the middle-class, just wait. If he gets another term he and his backers will have nothing left to lose.

For nearly twenty years I have been trying to make the case that learning more about the world enhances our ability to relate to others and enables us to put our own lives in better perspective. I have often been critical of the traditional educational establishment and have at times championed the C student. George W. Bush turns that endeavor into a mockery. My admiration for the C students of the world has been for their willingness to think independently and to take issue with conventional wisdom. I do not admire those whose contempt for scholarship derives from anti-intellectualism, and a disdain for thinking things through. George W. Bush's lack of knowledge is exceeded only by his shallowness and his arrogance. What I find most despicable is that his eagerness to resort to truth by association amounts to a celebration of ignorance?-and that ignorance is a prerequisite for membership in his faction. All it takes for those who do not seek knowledge but think they come by it naturally is to add a little religious righteousness and we have a recipe for global disaster.

The Bush constituency is bonded together through a lack of awareness. Nothing demonstrates this better than the fact that his inner-circle of right-wing ideologues knew nothing (save American textbooks) about the reality of the Middle-East. If they had done their homework about the history of the Iraqi people, they would have understood that occupation by a foreign government was unlikely to be tolerated. But anti-intellectuals don't need to think. They don't need to hear anything before taking action except the echo of their own empty minds. Bush's advisors thought that since the Iraqi people were so forcefully oppressed they would greet us as liberators and remain docile by request. Even a modest study of history would have shown this strategy to be ridiculous. Sadder still is the fact that Bush and Company do not learn from failed experience. They believe themselves to be privy to the truth by nature of who they are.

Truth by association is antithetical to democracy. Truth by association short-circuits reason in favor of tribal instincts. Moreover, it leads to the imbecilic notion that a great democracy can be sustained by an electorate that makes up its mind by watching thirty-second television advertisements, pitting one group against the other, while reason is set aside and even ridiculed.

Please don't "misunderestimate" what's at stake here. The quality of the future depends upon sending George W. Bush back to Crawford, Texas on November 2nd. He is hands down the worst president in my lifetime, and, if he gets another term, I predict he will achieve the distinction of being the worst president in American history.

I'll bet Charles D. Hayes doesn't cast his vote for George Bush.

Link, plz!

Cycloptichorn

link is here:

http://www.autodidactic.com/newsletters/selfnews.htm

What was it they used to say on Rowan and Martin,

"You bet your sweet bippy"?

Simple. Don't kick out the monitors who are there to verify that no prohibited items are created...

In other words: He simply needed to comply with the terms of the ceasefire, and UN resolutions, and he would have had nothing to worry about. Regardless of whether or not the US was right or wrong; Saddam was wrong. True or False?

We can argue till we're each blue in the face about who has the authority to stop a killer. No point we make will change the fact that killers need to be stopped and that ultimately it is their own fault when they are.

Iraq was contained and inspections were being carried out by UN personel. What since that was what the UN resolution had asked for. was the justification for Bush's war.

If that was directed at me; try removing the blinders and reading what I've written.

Bill wrote

Saddam at that moment in time was complying with the UN resolution, Inspectors were in place.

Sure Saddam was a killer or Bad man as Bush calls him. However, it is not up to the US to act as police, judge and jury. That certainly was not justification for the invasion.

I don't agree AU, and it isn't likely we ever will on this. That's why I typed "Regardless of whether or not the US was right or wrong", so set that aside.

Saddam wasn't obligated to comply with UN Resolution:

A. when he felt like it.
B. when the US military surrounded him in preparation for an invasion.
C. or at any other time of his choosing.

He was obligated to comply, period. This he did not do.

From the moment he defied his first resolution...
From the moment he kicked out the first wave of inspectors...
From the moment he decided to approve the building of Al Samoud II missiles...
From the moment he crossed any of dozens of other lines...

he was deserving of his fate.

Again, we can argue till we're each blue in the face about who had the authority to stop the killer.... But a killer he is. A killer who was lucky enough to get a second chance… He foolishly squandered it. At the end of the day; Saddam's decade of defiance is the reason he was removed. Had he complied, we wouldn't be having this conversation. That last resolution you refer to his complying with only exists because he failed to honor the previous 16.

Provide information to convince others it isn't there.

Officer: Are you carrying a weapon?

Suspect: No sir.

Officer: Prove it!

Suspect: I'll take off all my clothes so you can examine them and me.

Officer: Do so.

Suspect does so.

Officer: Well I'll be damned! You truly don't have a weapon in your clothes or on your naked person. Get dressed.

Ican
If that was supposed to be an analogy of Bush's actions relative to Iraq. You left out the part where the cop shoots the guy anyhow.