Politics: J'accuse!

[bilmore]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
On the more narrow point, do you think it's fair to differentiate between warnings of hijackings and warnings of hijackers who use planes as missiles? Is one so qualitatively different than the other?

We also knew about guns, and bombs, and chemicals that could poison a city's waters, or a population's food supply, or air, and we knew about threats to power sources, and to fuel storage areas, and to mass transit, and to large crowds in sporting events or big malls, and we knew about dams that could be blown, and we knew about schools that could be destroyed, and we knew about hot air balloons that could descend and blow up, and we knew about internet hackings that could render us down for days, and we knew about telecommunications centers that could cripple us if destroyed, and we knew about . . . sheesh, we knew about all of those things, and OBL only had to choose one, or come up with a completely new way, and you want to say "but you knew about it - how could you be so stupid as to not predict and stop it!"?

This is getting wacko.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
You deliberately left off the next line:

"Reuters also quoted Chirac as reiterating that there would be no French military involvement in Iraq"

Or in other words, "please please please please please don't hurt us, we hate the US too"

Or, in other words, "even though the U.S. is fucking up the war on terror, we still won't negotiate with terrorists."

It's really, really hard for you guys to conceptualize that another country might disagree strongly with our Iraq policy but also oppose terrorism, isn't it?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
It's really, really hard for you guys to conceptualize that another country might disagree strongly with our Iraq policy but also oppose terrorism, isn't it?

When that country did its best to keep Saddam in power while he was killing hundreds of thousands, and secretly profit from the situation, yeah.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
you want to say "but you knew about it - how could you be so stupid as to not predict and stop it!"?

That wasn't my point. I said it twice, so I conclude you are deliberately misreading me.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
When that country did its best to keep Saddam in power while he was killing hundreds of thousands, and secretly profit from the situation, yeah.

And that has what to do with Al Qaeda and the war on terror? Just about nothing.

If your point is that the French were supporting bad people, what do you make of the fact that John Negroponte, with his record of support for -- or, at the very least, willfully turning a blind eye to -- Honduran death squads, is the leading contender to be the ambassador to Iraq?

eta: More on Negroponte:

• ...Negroponte -- ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 -- was doing his best to make sure that news of torture, disappearances and killings by the U.S.-trained Honduran military didn't make it back to Congress or the American people, where it might discourage funding for the covert wars.
  
  More than $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer money flowed to the Honduran military during the 1980s. The country served as the primary U.S. base for waging its clandestine wars against communism -- specifically in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The CIA trained and financed a Honduran army unit known as Battalion 316, which kidnapped and tortured hundreds of people. Negroponte denied knowing of the human rights violations though the abuses were widely publicized in the Honduran press. A CIA document declassified in 1998 and made available by the nonprofit National Security Archive, acknowledged that the Honduran military had committed abuses which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned.
  
  "The focus of my efforts were in shoring up Honduras's own defenses," Negroponte said in a 1999 CNN interview. "So we worked on building up their military, and building their self-confidence. ... We served as a sort of rear area, if you will, on a modest scale for the efforts in El Salvador." Some 75,000 Salvadorans died in the civil war in that country.

more

Is he going to do for Iraqi democracy what he did for Honduran democracy?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If your point is that the French were supporting bad people, what do you make of the fact that John Negroponte, with his record of support for -- or, at the very least, willfully turning a blind eye to -- Honduran death squads, is the leading contender to be the ambassador to Iraq?

I'm searching to find a connection here, and all I can come up with is, you need a change of subject quickly. Okay, enough with the French, I suppose. I take that as a concession.

As to JN, the guy gets this rap every time he's been appointed, which, I think, will now be to nine government posts. Maybe he did what derecha says - I don't know. I was never a fan of Ollie's, and paid little attention to that whole chapter. But, it seems to me that, after how many confirmation battles where these accusations keep getting brought up, it says something that he keeps getting confirmed. I understand that him being a part of the UN right now is hardly a good recommendation, but I'm hoping he can overcome that deficit.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
That wasn't my point. I said it twice, so I conclude you are deliberately misreading me.

No, your point is that you want to play word games with what Rice said, but in a way such that you can quickly backtrack and claim "I NEVER implied that anyone could have predicted that!"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
No, your point is that you want to play word games with what Rice said, but in a way such that you can quickly backtrack and claim "I NEVER implied that anyone could have predicted that!"

No, my point was that Rice wouldn't have said something that could be so easily contradicted, so one can only conclude that she hasn't bothered to learn the sorts of basic history one can get from reading Sacred Terror.

If you want to argue with a straw man, why not get yourself a sock to say stupid things that you could then refute? Because I get a little tired of you doing it to my posts.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone_Slothrop
And that has what to do with Al Qaeda and the war on terror? Just about nothing.

If your point is that the French were supporting bad people, what do you make of the fact that John Negroponte, with his record of support for -- or, at the very least, willfully turning a blind eye to -- Honduran death squads, is the leading contender to be the ambassador to Iraq?

eta: More on Negroponte:

• ...Negroponte -- ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 -- was doing his best to make sure that news of torture, disappearances and killings by the U.S.-trained Honduran military didn't make it back to Congress or the American people, where it might discourage funding for the covert wars.
  
  More than $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer money flowed to the Honduran military during the 1980s. The country served as the primary U.S. base for waging its clandestine wars against communism -- specifically in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The CIA trained and financed a Honduran army unit known as Battalion 316, which kidnapped and tortured hundreds of people. Negroponte denied knowing of the human rights violations though the abuses were widely publicized in the Honduran press. A CIA document declassified in 1998 and made available by the nonprofit National Security Archive, acknowledged that the Honduran military had committed abuses which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned.
  
  "The focus of my efforts were in shoring up Honduras's own defenses," Negroponte said in a 1999 CNN interview. "So we worked on building up their military, and building their self-confidence. ... We served as a sort of rear area, if you will, on a modest scale for the efforts in El Salvador." Some 75,000 Salvadorans died in the civil war in that country.

more

Is he going to do for Iraqi democracy what he did for Honduran democracy?

It has to do with the point that France's "disagreement" with our Iraq policy has nothing to do with your "disagreement" with our Iraq policy, and has everything to do with their profiting from the Saddam regime.

Is Honduras also now lobbying to become a part of SEATO, or are you just punting from a losing argument?

[SlaveNoMore]

bilmore
I'm searching to find a connection here, and all I can come up with is, you need a change of subject quickly. Okay, enough with the French, I suppose. I take that as a concession.

I need to stop working in order to keep up. Sheesh.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If you want to argue with a straw man, why not get yourself a sock to say stupid things that you could then refute? Because I get a little tired of you doing it to my posts.

2. Ty's no straw man b. Sure Ty's arguments aren't brick- but they're more mud than straw.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm searching to find a connection here, and all I can come up with is, you need a change of subject quickly. Okay, enough with the French, I suppose. I take that as a concession.

I said, the French support the war on terror. You said, but they supported Hussein, who did bad things. As you say, I'm searching to find a connection here.

But since you think the French support for people who did bad things is germane, I pointed out that Negroponte was in bed with a bunch of Hondurans who did bad things.

As to JN, the guy gets this rap every time he's been appointed, which, I think, will now be to nine government posts. Maybe he did what derecha says - I don't know. I was never a fan of Ollie's, and paid little attention to that whole chapter. But, it seems to me that, after how many confirmation battles where these accusations keep getting brought up, it says something that he keeps getting confirmed.

It says that a majority of senators are as blase about torture and human rights violations as you are? He sounds like just the man to bring credibility to our efforts to introduce democracy to Iraq.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Or, in other words, "even though the U.S. is fucking up the war on terror,

Please explain how "the US is fucking up the war on terror." TIA.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
It has to do with the point that France's "disagreement" with our Iraq policy has nothing to do with your "disagreement" with our Iraq policy, and has everything to do with their profiting from the Saddam regime.

If Richard Clarke has taught us anything, it's not that Condi Rice would have been introduced to the idea of planes as missiles if she went to B. Dalton for her briefings, it's that you can discredit any principled objection to Bush policy by pointing to a profit motive.

Halliburton made lots of money with Iraq. Where does that lead you? I think it's a dead end, but you seem to think this profiteering is pretty interesting.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
Please explain how "the US is fucking up the war on terror." TIA.

Read the end of Clarke's book, where he explains why invading Iraq is a bad idea. Then get your news for a couple of days from somewhere other than LGF and FOX.

We diverted resources that could have been used to combat terrorism. We gave radical Islam another cause, and Moslems everywhere another reason to resent us. We're making a (brutal, totalitarian) regime that was no friend of radical Islam into a failed state that will be much more conducive to it. We've alienated our friends around the world, whose cooperation we need. That's for starters.