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

As I said before. Freedom means that YOU don't get to decide when, where, or what people say. You can't support free speech and have it any other way. Period.

To criticize a group of people for exercising their rights (there's a reason it's the FIRST amendment) is patently UnAmerican.

I also would hasten to remind you that you, Fox, dropped every single one of my points here

Care to respond, or do you concede the argument?

Cycloptichorn

Strange that in your mind it is fine to bash, even undermine a sitting president in time of war, Cyclop, but it is unAmerican to critize the bashers? What kind of logic is that?

As for the points you made previously, you don't give me much to go on other than 'do too', 'do not', "no way' etc. rhetoric without authentication. Give me a reasonable (and reasonably interesting) thesis to work with, and we can have a discussion.

Foxfyre, I could not disagree more with this opinion of yours. Post-mortem criticism is whining. If the leader of a democracy is headed on the wrong path, and that path is having tragic consequences, how can any person but a timid or apathetic yeah-sayer sit quietly? In a democracy, we are responsible for our choice of leader. Our last elected leader scraped in by a whisker and lost the popular vote. Many of us in this country who watched as Bush took us to war have hesitated to shout our loudest in protest for the very reason that we feared the effect, in this country and around the world, of how that protest would affect the morale of our troops in Iraq.

Now that it is time to re-elect (or elect for the first time ) our current president or to elect someone else with a better vision, we have every right to speak truth to power. We would be remiss in not doing so. If I can shout loudly enough, perhaps Kerry will raise the troop strength drastically in Iraq so that US, coalition forces, and Iraqis will die in fewer numbers. I do not think I'm being disloyal. I think those who do not speak out are the disloyal ones.

That's odd. When I re-read my post, I seem to recall you making the claim that Al Jazeera is responsible for bad feeling (as well as the people who voice their anti-war opinions), to which I responded with a question: you don't think the innocent kids and women we kill make any bad feeling towards America?

How would you feel if two of your kids were killed? Would you need Al Jazeera to tell you to be angry?

You refuse to answer this question because it exposes the hollowness of your previously stated position.



Consistent logic? I know you righties have a hard time with it, so I'll write it out for you the long way.

Americans have the right to free speech. This right is not limited by your judgement of the timing of the speech.

You have the perfect right to point out logical faults with someone's argument, show them where they are wrong. But you do not have the right to tell someone they shouldn't make their argument; our first amendment guarantees that right, even if you disagree with what is being said, Fox.

Whether you believe it or not, it hurts Freedom and America more to shout down the voices of dissent than it does to listen to them.

As for your call for a reasonable thesis, I'll write up something this weekend and come back to you on Mon. - I'm visiting my family in Houston and have limited internet access for the weekend.

Cheers to all!

Cycloptichorn

Could it be???

The New York Times reports today that:

"Militant Cleric Is Testing Entry In Iraqi Politics
By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: October 3, 2004


AGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 2 - The Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has begun laying the groundwork to enter Iraq's nascent democratic process, telling Iraqi leaders that he is planning to disband his militia and possibly field candidates for office.

After weeks of watching his militia wither before American military attacks, Mr. Sadr has sent emissaries to some of Iraq's major political parties and religious groups to discuss the possibility of involving himself in the campaign for nationwide elections, according to a senior aide to Mr. Sadr and several Iraqi leaders who have met with him.

According to these Iraqis, Mr. Sadr says he intends to disband his militia, the Mahdi Army, and endorse the holding of elections. And while Mr. Sadr has made promises to end his armed resistance before, some Iraqi officials believe that he may be serious this time, especially given the toll of attacks on his forces.

Mr. Sadr's aides say his political intentions have been endorsed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most powerful Shiite religious leader. He has long tried to tame what he believes is Mr. Sadr's destructive influence on the chances of Iraq's Shiites to win a majority in the elections scheduled for January.

In recent weeks, Mr. Sadr's chief aide, Ali Smesim, has met with some of the country's most important political leaders, including members of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the powerful Sunni organization; leaders of the country's Kurdish community; Christians and other Shiite leaders. Mr. Sadr appears to be particularly interested in cultivating disaffected political groups that did not cooperate with the American occupation and which are not now part of the interim Iraqi government. Those smaller parties, in turn, are keenly interested in tapping the vast support enjoyed by the 31-year-old cleric among Iraq's poor.............."

Full story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/middleeast/03sadr.html?ex=1254456000&en=a6350d5055ea61c4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

If you can't fight em, join em.

Indeed. Tough pill to swallow... but if he's genuine I think some kind of amnesty should be reached. The potential is enormous.

Sea change, possibly, you think?

Dar e be optimistic?

It's seems a pretty rough sea, but my fingers are crossed.

And - more suggestions that the White House knew that pre-war intelligence was seriously flawed:

NYT today: Full story: (THis is a long, but interesting article - free registration required)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/middleeast/03tube.html?ex=1254456000&en=e1cdc9aa366e0336&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

"How the White House Embraced Disputed Iraqi Arms Intelligence
By DAVID BARSTOW, WILLIAM J. BROAD
and JEFF GERTH

Published: October 3, 2004


his article was reported by David Barstow, William J. Broad and Jeff Gerth, and was written by Mr. Barstow.

In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program.

In a speech to veterans that August, Vice President Dick Cheney said Mr. Hussein could have an atomic bomb "fairly soon." The next month, Mr. Cheney told a group of Wyoming Republicans the United States had "irrefutable evidence" - thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges, before some were seized at the behest of the United States.

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The tubes quickly became a critical exhibit in the administration's brief against Iraq. As the only physical evidence the United States could brandish of Mr. Hussein's revived nuclear ambitions, they gave credibility to the apocalyptic imagery invoked by President Bush and his advisers. The tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, asserted on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Before Ms. Rice made those remarks, though, she was aware that the government's foremost nuclear experts had concluded that the tubes were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all, an examination by The New York Times has found. Months before, her staff had been told that these experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets.

But Ms. Rice, and other senior administration officials, embraced a disputed theory about the tubes first championed in April 2001 by a new analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. Senior scientists considered the theory implausible, yet in the months after 9/11, as an administration built a case for confronting Iraq, the theory gained currency as it rose to the top of the government.

"She was aware of the differences of opinion," the senior administration official said of Ms. Rice in an interview authorized by the White House. "She was also aware that at the highest level of the intelligence community, there was great confidence that these tubes were for centrifuges."

Ms. Rice's alarming description on CNN was in keeping with the administration's overall treatment of the tubes. Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America's leading nuclear scientists, The Times found. They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of their own experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public.

The result was a largely one-sided presentation to the public that did not convey the depth of evidence and argument against the administration's most tangible proof of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq.

In response to questions last week about the tubes, administration officials emphasized two points: First, they said they had relied on the repeated assurances of George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, that the tubes were in fact for centrifuges. Second, they noted that the intelligence community, including the Energy Department, largely agreed that Mr. Hussein had revived his nuclear program.

"We understood from intelligence briefings that the aluminum tubes were a part of the case" for nuclear reconstitution, Kevin Kellems, director of communications for Mr. Cheney, said in a statement. But "there were a number of other important pieces of evidence." Furthermore, he said, the concerns about Mr. Hussein's nuclear capabilities "followed the tenor of the intelligence we had been hearing for some time."

It is not known when the president learned of the doubts that had been raised about the tubes. Sean McCormack, a spokesman for Mr. Bush, said yesterday that the president relied on the intelligence community to assess the tubes' significance. "These judgments sometimes require members of the intelligence community to make tough assessments about competing interpretations of facts," he said.

Mr. Tenet declined to be interviewed. But in a statement, he said he "made it clear" to the White House "that the case for a possible nuclear program in Iraq was weaker than that for chemical and biological weapons." Regarding the tubes, Mr. Tenet said "alternative views were shared" with the administration after the intelligence community drafted a new National Intelligence Estimate in late September 2002......................."

When Bushie II keeps repeating that congress and Kerry had the same intelligence as he did, Kerry needs to jump on that statement and respond with the facts that Bush and company misinterpreted everything they read. Why doesn't he?

dlowan, that is good news indeed about Sadr. He has indicated previously that his intent was political power. Then he backed off. He will be an interesting player in Iraqi politics.

c.i., don't you think that Bush received the intel that his people wanted him to receive? His groupies of the neo-con persuasion were hell bent for war against Iraq. There were few calming voices and those few were lost in the flak. It is becoming clear that the US was moving toward war and that all intel that would have deterrred or caused any doubt was dropped out of the daily briefing.

They are all saying now that the intelligence led them to go to war. This is their justification for the unique act of pre-emptive war that took place in March of 2003. When events are sweeping toward a goal, the very energy of that effort becomes encompassing and dismissive of noise around the edges. Excitement builds, all of the nation's power is directed toward this "threat" and this defined enemy.

project for the new american century...

WHAT MATTERS NOW IS WHETHER OUR INVASIONS OF AGHANISTAN AND IRAQ CAN BE VALIDLY JUSTIFIED NOW.

Afghanistan --
1. The al Qaeda declared war and were making war on Americans.
2. The Taliban refused to stop sheltering al Qaeda.
3. The Taliban were murdering innocent Afghanistani people.

Iraq --
1. The al Qaeda declared war and were making war on Americans.
2. The Saddam refused to stop sheltering al Qaeda.
3. The Saddam were murdering innocent Iraqi people.

What's the difference?

The number of al Qaeda sheltered in Afghanistan prior to its invasion by us was greater than the number of al Qaeda sheltered in Iraq prior to its invasion by us.

The number of innocents murdered by the Saddam prior to our invasion of Iraq was greater than the number of innocents murdered by the Taliban prior to our invasion of Afganistan.

How do we know al Qaeda were sheltered in Afghanistan prior to our invasion of Afghanistan?

We killed or captured a number of them there in the 18 months subsequent to the Afghanistan invasion and prior to the Iraq invasion.

How do we know al Qaeda were sheltered in Iraq prior to our invasion of Iraq?

We killed or captured a number of them there in the first 3 months subsequent to the Iraq invasion.

Thankfully, they did what they should have done! It was not a "unique act of pre-emptive war." But it was a courageous counterattack in opposition to alleged mass opinion. It was intended to help shorten the war. Thankfully, the Israelis destroyed Saddam's nuclear facility long before our invasion (Iraq's Osiraq-Tammuz nuclear plant in 1981). That too was in opposition to alleged mass opinion. But in its case was truly a pre-emptive attack.

The enemy, al Qaeda, defined itself. It declared war against Americans among others in 1998. Al Qaeda was just as dangerous while sheltered in Iraq as it was while sheltered in Somalia or Afghanistan.

One more time!

What a weak and hollow justification for lying to the American people. Lying!

I know you are more interested in the realities of our current situation than in justifying past actions, Icann, and I understand and appreciate that. Nevertheless, base deception by one's leaders can not be tolerated. This is important.



If you have to lie to get your purpose accomplished, perhaps we should re-think our purpose.... it was a 'counter-attack' against facts and reality. We should not build our case for war upon such things.

Cycloptichorn

There you go again with the lying. Being wrong is not the same as lying, yet you fail to see the difference. Why is that?

Because those in power had ample evidence that they were wrong before they presented the Iraq WMD case as fact, is why...

I'd link the times article that hit yesterday for ya, but you'll no doubt attack the source so I won't. But I will recommend that you read an excellent piece on the Admin's massaging of 'maybes' into 'definately' in order to gain support for the war, by scaring Americans into supporting a pre-emptive strike.

That's called lying. And it is completely reprehensible in our leaders.

Cycloptichorn

Really? Where was it? Where was all the evidence? I seem to recall lots of evidence that Saddam had WMD's and had a history of ignoring UN resolutions as well as hindering the UN inspections.

You should post the article and let me make my own decisions. I will do the same.