Re: posting warnings of possible WMD finds
(see
here for my summary of/critical hint about timber's earlier warnings and
here for timber's reply)
timberlandko wrote:Oh, no offence taken, but pardon me, nimh, sweety
, I think your recitation rather than chronicling my failures documents my accuracy. , I think you'll find I clearly label "speculation" and rumor
That was rather the point. It is admirable that you do indicate the relativity or uncertainty of each item you post, yes. But one should ask oneself how much use it is to post things at all when they are merely rumours, speculations, anonymous unconfirmed reports, etc. I understand the eagerness about following amny snippet of news. But yet another post about how "Sources" say that "Signs" are that this time, a "Serious find" has been made and "the Broadcast media will be making much of it" may
sound like there's a well-informed expert speaking, but in fact say as much about acttual facts as when I would post merely to note, for example, that "the Impression" is that "Rumsfeld's behavior" this time has "much of world opinion" feeling "serious apprehensions" at him and that "consequences for the world and Arab countries in particular" might well be "serious". It is just so much hot air.
There's also a real enough risk involved. Its the risk of "smoke and fire" - a risk involving (appropriately) the question of "clouding the issue".
You yourself repeatedly use the "where there's smoke, there must be fire" logic. I think that logic in itself is seriously dangerous. It has too much of its roots in the medieval times when witches were hunted. If so many people say she's a witch, something must be amiss, would have been the logic then, despite the fact that everybody was talking who's-a-witch simply because the hunts were on. And no, I'm not claiming Saddam is the innocent victim of a witchhunt, merely that I do see a deliberate campaign going on, directed to spread as much smoke about, so that in the end everybody will draw the smoke-and-fire conclusion, leaving the US gvt free to claim its initial legitimisation for war even lacking actual evidence yet. They're gambling that even should the hard evidence not turn up, people will have been numbed so much by the continuous news of almost- and apparently-WMD that they wont care much anymore anyway, assuming there will have been something wrong somewhere.
On the practical side, you run the risk that, after a dozen announcements that, this time, they really seem to have found something, that werent actually borne out in the follow-up, nobody will take you 13th post about it as more than a statement of personal belief that something must be up - even should it turn out to be true.
timberlandko wrote:frequently add a personal commentary of sceptical regard, and freely admit when conjecture is not borne out.
Well, I did a search on WMD and iraq in posts by you - thats where my overview came from - and though of course I may in that way have missed a few of your posts, there seems in fact to be surprisingly little critical follow-up. Thats part of the reason why I was calling you on it, in fact, because if there had been, I'd been applauding you now: somebody surely should keep track of all the reported "finds" and monitor what came of them. But in all the posts I found, the only admissions of such sort were of the "I begin to suspect the weight of the Bodyguard story" and "while The Chemical Factory, though fortified and camfolaged, apparently contained nothing" kind, and were always conditionalised by threatening-sounding, but in themselves rather meaningless insinuations like "but something dramatic is surely afoot" and "that in itself is interesting", which were in turn never followed up again.
(Concerning the chemical factory, btw, I understood from another article that like many paranoid dictatorships Saddam had
most all his country's strategic factories, whether military or civilian - camouflaged. Remember, the Soviet Union had entire cities declared off-limits to outsiders, to "protect" strategic industry, for example. About the underground nuclear complex that CNN "made much of" - to stick to the jargon ;-) - I since heard a UN weapon inspector warn that it sounded to him like the Americans had broken the seal on a nuclear waste storage space they had identified and analysed - dunno if there's been news about it since.)
The bottom line is - I've been off-media a day or two now, but in all the months until I decided to list your warnings thus far, not a single "smoking gun" was actually identified. That does put your near-continuous sequence of abstract-warning posts in a slightly shrill light, or rather - to put it a little less harshly - it makes it seem plausible enough to summarise them all by your quote "I remain confident investigatoion opportunities [..] will produce conclusove evidence of WMD activi9ty on the part of Saddam's regime" - which isnt, in the end, more than a statement of belief.
And you may well turn out to be right in the end, but I got a bit tired of the suggestion of expert inside information in which it was coated when there hasnt actually
been any evidence to back it up with yet - just a lot of "fog of war", whether or not created with some extent of intent - and its up to a knowledge forum like this one to cut
through that fog, not to pump it around. And thats where I was pointing to c.i.'s post as perhaps a useful pointer to keep in mind a bit more:
c.i. wrote:With so many false alarms concerning this war, I'm apt to discredit hot off the press news. I prefer to wait for that "confirmation," then respond.
timberlandko wrote:So I'll just say "Thanks". :wink:
no problem ;-)
I skipped a few posts and thought I was up to date, that will teach me. (MSNBC still has it as their lead story.) It usually takes me about a hour to digest the deathless prose of this thread and view the links. (What a fine bunch of minds here.) I must learn to be patient. 