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Author Topic: NY Times Magazine last Sunday.......  (Read 19242 times)

RSL

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NY Times Magazine last Sunday.......
« Reply #80 on: March 27, 2010, 07:42:43 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin
Might want to hunt down the Frontline episode "Bush's War".  It is pretty fascinating.  I'm pretty sure it is just more disgusting and cowardly left wing crap to be dismissed but even so.

Yes, and Jayson Blair was a "reporter" for the New York Times.
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Jeremy Payne

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« Reply #81 on: March 27, 2010, 07:54:44 pm »

Iraq was in clear violation of the cease-fire resolution that ended the first Gulf War.

The US had clear legal justification to re-engage militarily.  Whether or not it was politically advisable to do so is another matter ...

Regarding his weapons programs ... Until the eve of war, even Saddam's top generals thought he had WMDs, so is it any surprise that the rest of the world did as well?
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jjj

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« Reply #82 on: March 27, 2010, 11:12:35 pm »

Quote from: RSL
In the first place, I'm not the one making the accusation that the free world's intelligence services were all crooked. I can take as evidence the fact that the free world agreed there was a problem. What you're saying is that the intelligence services of the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Israel etc., etc., all were playing a crooked game because the president of the U.S. wanted to go to war. That's what needs evidence, yet no one seems to be able to come up with any.
But the various intelligence agencies did not agree and why many countries did not follow the US and were vilified and called cowards as a result.



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Really... Then, what do you think was the reason?
Er.. regime change, revenge, stupidity...a lot of stupidity in fact.


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I think that's a fair quibble, and I can't argue with it because I haven't any evidence that it's not true, but when I read some of the stuff that gets written about how the world can live happily with a nuclear Iran -- in other words, a religious madman with a nuke in hand -- it becomes pretty clear to me at least that I may be right.
I do not think anyone in their right mind would be happy with any loose cannons having nuclear weapons.

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Incidentally, the weapons "well before your time" are still around and now they're capable of orders of magnitude more "power and destruction."
I know. Doesn't make any difference really. Being able to destroy ten world ten times over or a thousand times is irrelevent really. You can't be more dead.
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jjj

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« Reply #83 on: March 27, 2010, 11:25:52 pm »

Quote from: RSL
But to go back to my original argument: The fact is that the free world's governments believed, on the basis of raw intelligence data to which none of us have access that Saddam was an existential threat to the world. That's enough evidence on my side of the argument for me to demand that anyone who wants to argue on the other side needs first to present his evidence that those folks were lying. But before anyone wastes time trying to do that, there's another little factoid that's presents a problem: even some of Saddam's top military folks thought he had WMDs.
Also incorrectly it would seem. Saddam may have wanted WMDs, but that did not mean he had them or the capability to produce them. There was also a massive fuss in the UK about intelligence documents that were 'sexed up' to make the case for war more convincing.
The nonsense that we were sold that Saddam was that he had the capability to unlease WMDs in 45mins or less and was one of the main driving points our government used to justify this invasion and has since been admitted to be ing completely wrong. There has been a huge inquiry in the UK regarding the invasion and legality etc with everyone involved having to go to court. Conveniently the verdict will come out just after the forthcoming election.

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The bottom line is this: Can anyone explain to me why they think the French, Germans, Japanese, would be interested in sucking up to Bush on the question of war.
NEWSFLASH - they didn't. They was an awful lot of disagreement and bad feeling about the US and the UK going to war without a UN mandate.

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I can see arguments about why the Israelis might, and I can vaguely see arguments about why the Brits might, though considering the differences in political conviction between Blair and Bush that's a hard one to swallow. In the end, if no one can answer that question satisfactorily, there's simply no argument.
Don't think Blair and Bush were that far apart. New Labour are more right wing than the conservative governments that were previously very pally with Reagan + Bush Senior.
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RSL

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« Reply #84 on: March 28, 2010, 07:48:12 am »

I think it's time for me to butt out of this thread. We've reached the point where my correspondents seem unable to distinguish between what the free world's intelligence agencies were reporting and what their politicians did in response. Even the dithering U.N. has been brought in, which has nothing whatever to do with what appeared to be the threat. What started out as a criticism of a wretched bleeding-heart propaganda series run by the New York Times has degenerated into "Bush lied, people died," which for the NYT and its regular readers always passes for profundity. I need to take time off and go shoot some pictures. See ya...
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ErikKaffehr

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« Reply #85 on: March 28, 2010, 10:59:52 am »

Hi,

I'd say you are correct.

BR
Erik

Quote from: Jeremy Payne
Iraq was in clear violation of the cease-fire resolution that ended the first Gulf War.

The US had clear legal justification to re-engage militarily.  Whether or not it was politically advisable to do so is another matter ...

Regarding his weapons programs ... Until the eve of war, even Saddam's top generals thought he had WMDs, so is it any surprise that the rest of the world did as well?
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Justan

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« Reply #86 on: March 28, 2010, 11:59:37 am »

I wanted to chime in for a moment to comment about the following statement:

> Regarding his weapons programs ... Until the eve of war, even Saddam's top generals thought he had WMDs, so is it any surprise that the rest of the world did as well?

This is blatantly untrue and unfounded.

1) As a  logical point, no one can discern what someone else thinks or thought. All one can reliably draw upon is what someone is quoted to have stated, written, or done.

2) After capture, Saddam stated that his comments supporting WMDs were lies done to keep Iran and others at bay. His top generals would have knowledge of any facilities needed to build or house WMDs and/or their delivery means.

3) The US government *never* had any proof of an Iraq WMD program.

I urge all to draw your own conclusion from verified facts rather than conjecture.

Other than that, I used to frequent another site which had political argument after political argument. The end result of this process was a polarized group of people who ended up hating each other due to things which they could neither control nor alter the course. The goal of that site became a daily exercise in argument after increasingly bitter argument. This thread is following that path.

It is a healthy thing to comment and debate the deeds, misdeeds, and atrocities of any government, but use caution as the relative anonymity of the web often turns otherwise friendly and truth seeking discourse into hateful invective. The latter is most definitely not what this site is about.

ddk

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« Reply #87 on: March 28, 2010, 12:19:13 pm »

Quote from: RSL
I think it's time for me to butt out of this thread. We've reached the point where my correspondents seem unable to distinguish between what the free world's intelligence agencies were reporting and what their politicians did in response. Even the dithering U.N. has been brought in, which has nothing whatever to do with what appeared to be the threat. What started out as a criticism of a wretched bleeding-heart propaganda series run by the New York Times has degenerated into "Bush lied, people died," which for the NYT and its regular readers always passes for profundity. I need to take time off and go shoot some pictures. See ya...

I was about to suggest that Russ, unfortunately this is going nowhere, you know that when they start with Bush bashing again...

Let's go shoot something!
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david
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DarkPenguin

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« Reply #88 on: March 28, 2010, 12:33:29 pm »

Quote from: ddk
Let's go shoot something!

The Republican motto.

(Let's hope that is enough to close the thread.)
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Jeremy Payne

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« Reply #89 on: March 28, 2010, 12:37:23 pm »

Quote from: Justan

"Regarding his weapons programs ... Until the eve of war, even Saddam's top generals thought he had WMDs, so is it any surprise that the rest of the world did as well?"


This is blatantly untrue and unfounded.

Unfounded?  It isn't unfounded ... Saddam's generals said so in interviews after the war

Untrue?  By your own "rules of logic", you cannot know either, so get off your high horse.

Quote from: Justan
The US government *never* had any proof of an Iraq WMD program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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« Reply #90 on: March 28, 2010, 01:20:19 pm »

Quote from: Jeremy Payne
... Until the eve of war, even Saddam's top generals thought he had WMDs, so is it any surprise that the rest of the world did as well?
The rest of the world did not think so, the rest of the world KNEW it was just a lame excuse for neocons to do what they had been planning ten years BEFORE 9/11 (hint: PNAC)

Jeremy Payne

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« Reply #91 on: March 28, 2010, 01:28:06 pm »

Quote from: Slobodan Blagojevic
The rest of the world did not think so, the rest of the world KNEW it was just a lame excuse for neocons to do what they had been planning ten years BEFORE 9/11 (hint: PNAC)
Slobodan ... I agree with you that GWB and Cheney were hell-bent on war with Iraq.

BUT ... that doesn't change the fact that Saddam's generals, when debriefed after the war, told their American captors that they believed they had chemical and biological weapons that would be used to repel the invading Americans.  According to them, it was not until approximately 3 months before the beginning of the hostilities that Saddam revealed to them that there were no remaining stockpiles.

If this is disinformation, I don't see whose interests it served.


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Slobodan Blagojevic

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« Reply #92 on: March 28, 2010, 01:41:28 pm »

Quote from: RSL
... a wretched bleeding-heart propaganda ...
I am still stunned that showing there are humans behind the war-fallen statistics can be seen as propaganda by anyone in his right mind  (but than again, I probably do not get this sophisticated connection, for my own mind needs to be checked by a neurologist, as kindly suggested by Russ). By the same token, the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC must be the pinnacle of anti-war, leftist propaganda, as it names (oh, blasphemy) every single fallen soldier.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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« Reply #93 on: March 28, 2010, 02:04:30 pm »

Quote from: Jeremy Payne
... Saddam's generals, when debriefed after the war, told their American captors that they believed they had chemical and biological weapons that would be used to repel the invading Americans.  According to them, it was not until approximately 3 months before the beginning of the hostilities that Saddam revealed to them that there were no remaining stockpiles...
Shouldn't invading a country be based on something more solid than what some people "believed" to be true (even if those people were Saddam's generals)? CIA director at the time did not say "we believe", he said "it is a slam dunk" there are WMD.

Besides, isn't it the oldest trick in any military book, trying to deceive your enemy (about your real potential)?.. I am sure they teach it at the West Point (hack, they teach that my business school). Of course, "falling" for that (and then pleading "ignorance") is also the oldest trick in any political book, especially when you are hell-bent on invading for ten years.

Jeremy Payne

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« Reply #94 on: March 28, 2010, 02:23:12 pm »

Quote from: Slobodan Blagojevic
...

I'm not saying it was a good idea to invade Iraq in 2003.

All I'm saying is that it wasn't unreasonable to believe there were WMDs in Iraq prior to the war.

On what basis would anyone reasonably conclude that there were absolutely, positively no weapons in 2002?  That would be a HUGE leap of faith considering all of the available evidence.

1) There had been a weapons program leading up to the first Gulf War

2) There had been a cease-fire agreement which required Iraq to co-operate in investigations - and they had long since stopped cooperating

3) There was some scary circumstantial evidence ... e.g. one of the last outbreaks of smallpox in the world had occurred in Iraq while Saddam was in power

Again - this is not to say this represented a widely defensible case for war ... but it was not an unreasonable conclusion to reach that there were still chemical and biological weapons programs active in Iraq between 1998 and 2002.

Also, all the evidence suggests that Iraq had every intention of recommencing its program once UN sanctions were lifted.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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« Reply #95 on: March 28, 2010, 02:41:10 pm »

Quote from: Jeremy Payne
... On what basis would anyone reasonably conclude that there were absolutely, positively no weapons in 2002?...
I am sure you know that proving non-existance is a logical impossibility. And what you cite as "evidence" is far from it: those are simple assumptions (which brings me to one of my favorite play on words: do not assume, as you are going to make an ass of you and me   )

Jeremy Payne

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« Reply #96 on: March 28, 2010, 03:24:00 pm »

Quote from: Slobodan Blagojevic
ass of you and me   )

That was my favorite episode of the Odd Couple.

On that note, I'm out.

Russ and I will continue the discussion in private ... 'cause we're friends ...

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Peter McLennan

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« Reply #97 on: March 28, 2010, 04:11:51 pm »

Quote from: RSL
...(4) Make it harder for the United States to fight the wars it needs to fight by emboldening the clueless people who don't understand that these things need to be done.

Wow.
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Rob C

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« Reply #98 on: March 28, 2010, 06:11:00 pm »

Oh well, it's all academic now. The only hope is that we get out of there soon and take a good long and focussed look at where we place our future support and exactly why we think it a good idea.

Those interviews about the Invasion that jjj referred to were a disgraceful exercise in whitewash. The guy who seemed to be the head inquisitioner spent more time saying he wasn't actually a lawyer than doing any digging. He let Blair off without even a smack on the wrist, ending the segment by inviting him to make any summing up that took his fancy! Brown, on his turn, huffed and puffed and did the usual political thing of answering the wrong questions and then some days after the interview, had to make an announcement admitting he had lied - sorry, been incorrect regarding military funding claims...

Yes, Russ is right: there is no point to pushing this theme because we just end up believing what we feel is the 'truth' but I don't think that makes me think any the less of someone with a different opinion to mine; I might always be wrong.

Ciao

Rob C

ddk

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« Reply #99 on: March 28, 2010, 08:09:04 pm »

Quote from: Rob C
...we just end up believing what we feel is the 'truth' but I don't think that makes me think any the less of someone with a different opinion to mine; I might always be wrong.

Ciao

Rob C

You think the same way I do when it comes to these things, its just a group conversation, no need to make it more what it is.
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