President Bush: Is He a Liar?

Why do you all engage this guy?

I said that something is not a lie if the speaker believes it to be true. This is simply the most reasonable definition of a lie

How might you or anyone know that the speaker believes his statement to be true?

I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that there would be a number of ways. If, for instance, someone said that he didn't go to a meeting, but other witnesses attest that he did, that would be strong evidence of a lie. Another example would be if someone said that a = b, but it can be shown that it had already been proven to him that a does not equal b. Whether I can list every method of doing this is irrelevant. A person cannot be said to be lying who believes that he is telling the truth, yet proving perjury, libel, slander, or informal lying to a sufficient degree of confidence does not require mind reading.

But as their is no way to establish intent with certainty, we have to accept the limitation of reliance on inference from behaviors, past things said or done, contradictions, etc.

brandon

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I said that something is not a lie if the speaker believes it to be true. This is simply the most reasonable definition of a lie

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blatham

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How might you or anyone know that the speaker believes his statement to be true?

brandon

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I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that there would be a number of ways. If, for instance, someone said that he didn't go to a meeting, but other witnesses attest that he did, that would be strong evidence of a lie. Another example would be if someone said that a = b, but it can be shown that it had already been proven to him that a does not equal b. Whether I can list every method of doing this is irrelevant. A person cannot be said to be lying who believes that he is telling the truth, yet proving perjury, libel, slander, or informal lying to a sufficient degree of confidence does not require mind reading.

You are correct to argue that if someone believes he isn't lying, then we can't really refer to what he's done as a lie. The term presupposes intent to deceive.

But as their is no way to establish intent with certainty, we have to accept the limitation of reliance on inference from behaviors, past things said or done, contradictions, etc.

All of which makes the "we don't know he didn't believe what he was saying" criterion quite useless.

So, Bush says, at a particular point in time, "There are no war plans on my desk" and yet we also have solid evidence (in the form of statements by dozens of administration, military, intelligence and investigative individuals) that he had ordered up war plans many months earlier, then it seems rather reasonable to conclude that the inference Bush was trying to deceive is far more reasonable than inferring he was speaking truthfully.

By the same token then, "there are WMD's in Iraq" must not be a lie because we had solid evidence (in the form of statements by dozens of administration, military, intelligence and investigative individuals) that Iraq was in posession of WMD's.

n March 2002, Seymour M. Hersh reported in The New Yorker that "exile groups supported by the INC have been conducting sabotage operations inside Iraq, targeting oil refineries and other installations. The latest attack took place on January 23rd, an INC official told me, when missiles fired by what he termed 'indigenous dissidents' struck the large Baiji refinery complex, north of Baghdad, triggering a fire that blazed for more than twelve hours." However, Hersh added, "A dispute over Chalabi's potential usefulness preoccupies the bureaucracy, as the civilian leadership in The Pentagon continues to insist that only the INC can lead the opposition. At the same time, a former Administration official told me, 'Everybody but the Pentagon and the office of the Vice President wants to ditch the INC.' INC's critics note that Chalabi, despite years of effort and millions of dollars in American aid, is intensely unpopular today among many elements in Iraq. 'If Chalabi is the guy, there could be a civil war after Saddam's overthrow,' one former C.I.A. operative told me. A former high-level Pentagon official added, 'There are some things that a President can't order up, and an internal opposition is one.'" (Hersh, 2002).

Notwithstanding these concerns, Hersh reported that "INC supporters in and around the Administration, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, believe, like Chalabi, that any show of force would immediately trigger a revolt against Saddam within Iraq, and that it would quickly expand." In December 2002, Robert Dreyfuss reported that the administration of George W. Bush actually preferred INC-supplied analyses of Iraq over analyses provided by long-standing analysts within the CIA. "Even as it prepares for war against Iraq, the Pentagon is already engaged on a second front: its war against the Central Intelligence Agency.," he wrote. "The Pentagon is bringing relentless pressure to bear on the agency to produce intelligence reports more supportive of war with Iraq. ... Morale inside the U.S. national-security apparatus is said to be low, with career staffers feeling intimidated and pressured to justify the push for war." Much of the pro-war faction's information came from INC, even though "most Iraq hands with long experience in dealing with that country's tumultuous politics consider the INC's intelligence-gathering abilities to be nearly nil. ... The Pentagon's critics are appalled that intelligence provided by the INC might shape U.S. decisions about going to war against Baghdad. At the CIA and at the State Department, Ahmed Chalabi, the INC's leader, is viewed as the ineffectual head of a self-inflated and corrupt organization skilled at lobbying and public relations, but not much else."

"The [INC's] intelligence isn't reliable at all," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former senior CIA official and counterterrorism expert. "Much of it is propaganda. Much of it is telling the Defense Department what they want to hear. And much of it is used to support Chalabi's own presidential ambitions. They make no distinction between intelligence and propaganda, using alleged informants and defectors who say what Chalabi wants them to say, [creating] cooked information that goes right into presidential and vice-presidential speeches." (Dreyfuss, December 2002).

By the same token then, "there are WMD's in Iraq" must not be a lie because we had solid evidence (in the form of statements by dozens of administration, military, intelligence and investigative individuals) that Iraq was in posession of WMD's. So, what could the lie have been? It must therefore be reasonable to conclude that Iraq was a threat for many reasons and a war plan must have been neccesary.

Sigh. When accusing Bush or his adminisration on this point, it is just easier to post again - those who believed that WMD existed. It is also constructive that some very credible people still believe that WMD existed.

Foxfyre wrote:

Sigh. When accusing Bush or his adminisration on this point, it is just easier to post again - those who believed that WMD existed. It is also constructive that some very credible people still believe that WMD existed.

While I understand the value of faith for some people and their ability to not demand empirical evidence for their convictions, this is not one of those instances.
That there are "some very credible people" who still believe that WMD existed is irrelevent (especially when you, a right leaning A2K member, trots out Clinton "the liar" as one of their "credible people").
In addition, that you have highlighted statements prior to the invasion substantially weakens your contention. The simple and unfounded belief in WMD did not make them so. That there have been no WMD found, especially in the capacity, quantity or quality stated by the administration during the drumbeat to war makes these past suppositions by said "credible people" essentially meaningless.

Then you are calling every single one of those people who affirmed the presence of WMD liars?

candidone1 wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Sigh. When accusing Bush or his adminisration on this point, it is just easier to post again - those who believed that WMD existed. It is also constructive that some very credible people still believe that WMD existed.

While I understand the value of faith for some people and their ability to not demand empirical evidence for their convictions, this is not one of those instances.
That there are "some very credible people" who still believe that WMD existed is irrelevent (especially when you, a right leaning A2K member, trots out Clinton "the liar" as one of their "credible people").
In addition, that you have highlighted statements prior to the invasion substantially weakens your contention. The simple and unfounded belief in WMD did not make them so. That there have been no WMD found, especially in the capacity, quantity or quality stated by the administration during the drumbeat to war makes these past suppositions by said "credible people" essentially meaningless.

You seem to undertsand the difference between being wrong and being a liar, yes?

Many seem to think that being wrong and being a liar are the same thing. To me, it makes them look like super-sized ***** because they follow an agenda instead of facts.

Would you not agree that something more concrete than the utterances of "curveball" should have been examined before marching into Baghdad?

As it turns out, all the "credible" persons were mistaken because such a comprehensive infrastructure used for developing and housing biological and chemical weapons infrastructure were not found, nor were the developmental apparatuses for nuclear capabilities.

Lie, liar, lied, vis a vis WMD....not important to me.
We will never ascertain what the intent was, nor will we ever establish whether or not Bush lied when he spoke of the WMD.

candidone1 wrote:

Would you not agree that something more concrete than the utterances of "curveball" should have been examined before marching into Baghdad?

As it turns out, all the "credible" persons were mistaken because such a comprehensive infrastructure used for developing and housing biological and chemical weapons infrastructure were not found, nor were the developmental apparatuses for nuclear capabilities.

Lie, liar, lied, vis a vis WMD....not important to me.
We will never ascertain what the intent was, nor will we ever establish whether or not Bush lied when he spoke of the WMD.

Here's a hypothetical. If in 2003 there had been a 20% chance that in 3 years, Saddam Hussein would possess serious bioweapons, would it have been warranted to invade? Understand, I am not claiming this was the case, I am posing a hypothetical question. Decide for yourself what the adjective "serious" means. I await all the customary evasions and distractions.

Brandon9000 wrote:

candidone1 wrote:

Would you not agree that something more concrete than the utterances of "curveball" should have been examined before marching into Baghdad?

As it turns out, all the "credible" persons were mistaken because such a comprehensive infrastructure used for developing and housing biological and chemical weapons infrastructure were not found, nor were the developmental apparatuses for nuclear capabilities.

Lie, liar, lied, vis a vis WMD....not important to me.
We will never ascertain what the intent was, nor will we ever establish whether or not Bush lied when he spoke of the WMD.

Here's a hypothetical. If in 2003 there had been a 20% chance that in 3 years, Saddam Hussein would possess serious bioweapons, would it have been warranted to invade? Understand, I am not claiming this was the case, I am posing a hypothetical question. Decide for yourself what the adjective "serious" means. I await all the customary evasions and distractions.

Nope. There is a 20% chance right now that some country unfriendly to us will develop weapons that we don't want them to have. This doesn't warrant invasion of every country that is unfriendly to us.

Should other countries invade the US, who not only has a chance of developing Bioweapons, but in all probability has quite a few of them stockpiled? There is a nonzero chance that we would use them in the future, and they have the safety of their societies to think about, after all.

Cycloptichorn