Offering constructive criticism to the social cripples in our midst since early 2005.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
The funny thing with this debate is if you say "He lied," the defense is "No, he exagerrated." OK. An exagerration is a lie. Its not as bold as a full on fabrication, but its a lie nonetheless. You've misrepresented the gravity of something. In this case, a standard had to be met. To go to war, we had to prove an imminent threat existed. Well, Hussein was a potential threat. Remote, unlikely, but neverthless technically potential. So somebody exaggerated his danger to the level of "imminent." And based on that exagerration, we went to war. Now, how is that exagerration not a lie? If Bush had just bald faced made up a pile of facts and we went to war on those, how would the result have been any different than what he achieved with his "exaggeration"? A lie is a lie is a lie. The degree of the deception is immaterial in this case.

Everyone then believed he had weapons. He had used them before. He had tried covert things against the US before. No exaggerations so far.

After 9/11 to alow the above to be a continuing threat would have been negligence on the part of our government. Despite after the fact rationalizations, we were only allowed to "contain" him such as it was becasue we had 200K troops on his border. In 96 Clinton etal made noises about attacking him based upon what was known. Nothing had changed by 2003 except we could afford to wait and see any longer.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Everyone then believed he had weapons. He had used them before. He had tried covert things against the US before. No exaggerations so far.

After 9/11 to alow the above to be a continuing threat would have been negligence on the part of our government. Despite after the fact rationalizations, we were only allowed to "contain" him such as it was becasue we had 200K troops on his border. In 96 Clinton etal made noises about attacking him based upon what was known. Nothing had changed by 2003 except we could afford to wait and see any longer.

1. The sole covert operation I've heard of to date was his attempt to kill Bush I. And as I recall, it was a "Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight" embarrassment - the sort of imbecilic fumbling of an assassination that should have clued us in to the fact that Hussein was more a buffoon than a threat. Anything else? 'Cause I don't see that getting us into a war.

2. Negligence? Hussein wasn't going to attack us. The negligence here was not finishing Afghanistan and failing to grab the Saudis by the throat and demand they stop funding Wahhabism. The negligence was sleeping while Kim got the bomb.

Why did 9/11 make it mandatory for us to deal with Hussein? What duty did an AQ attack impose on us to rid the world of a tin pot dictator? Why didn't we focus the resources in annihilating AQ. Why aren't we paying Pakistan to let us into the provinces to deal with AQ? Why aren't we up the Saudi's asses... reminding them that we'll publicly disown them, leaving them defenseless, and push them toward toppling, at which point we'll take their oil on behalf of a multinational coalition that would be more than thrilled to have the cheap fuel?

The Saudis sit on the biggest oil reserve in the world. And they have no defense. They exist because we say they can. Yet we treat them like they're equals.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Hussein was more a buffoon than a threat. Anything else? 'Cause I don't see that getting us into a war.

There are some 500000 dead souls that might disagree with you here.

2. Negligence? Hussein wasn't going to attack us. The negligence here was not finishing Afghanistan and failing to grab the Saudis by the throat and demand they stop funding Wahhabism. The negligence was sleeping while Kim got the bomb.

Why did 9/11 make it mandatory for us to deal with Hussein? What duty did an AQ attack impose on us to rid the world of a tin pot dictator? Why didn't we focus the resources in annihilating AQ. Why aren't we paying Pakistan to let us into the provinces to deal with AQ?

Going into Pakistan might well bring down Musaref or whatever his name is. Then you have another hostile government that we would have to attack immediately to at least blow up the bombs. I'm sure Ty can post blogs saying Pakistan is more stable, but I call bullshit.

Why aren't we up the Saudi's asses... reminding them that we'll publicly disown them, leaving them defenseless, and push them toward toppling, at which point we'll take their oil on behalf of a multinational coalition that would be more than thrilled to have the cheap fuel?

The Saudis sit on the biggest oil reserve in the world. And they have no defense. They exist because we say they can. Yet we treat them like they're equals.

If the current SA government falls who is next in line? again, a hostile government.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
To go to war, we had to prove an imminent threat existed.

Had to prove to whom? Saddam Hussein broke the treaty that ended the Gulf War. So there was plenty of legal justifications to go to war. If you think all international law is bunk, well then we didn't need a justification.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Going into Pakistan might well bring down Musaref or whatever his name is. Then you have another hostile government that we would have to attack immediately to at least blow up the bombs.

It's odd that you guys think we should take out Hussein, without regard to the poor prospects for replacing him with someone or something much better, but jump to that line when the subject is Pakistan. If we can install democracy in Iraq, why not Pakistan? Do you think Pakistanis are unready for democracy or something?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
Had to prove to whom? Saddam Hussein broke the treaty that ended the Gulf War. So there was plenty of legal justifications to go to war. If you think all international law is bunk, well then we didn't need a justification.

You are speaking past each other. I don't think sebby was framing this in the formalistic sense, he was addressing it from a practical perspective. In order for W to be able to sell the war to the American people, he had to prove that the threat was imminent. There are many things that we can do legally that are nevertheless unwise.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
You are speaking past each other. I don't think sebby was framing this in the formalistic sense, he was addressing it from a practical perspective. In order for W to be able to sell the war to the American people, he had to prove that the threat was imminent. There are many things that we can do legally that are nevertheless unwise.

If I had been voted dumbest I'd take a hiatus from talking down to people for awhile.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
You are speaking past each other. I don't think sebby was framing this in the formalistic sense, he was addressing it from a practical perspective. In order for W to be able to sell the war to the American people, he had to prove that the threat was imminent. There are many things that we can do legally that are nevertheless unwise.

He never said "imminent" - we had that discussion already.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
There are many things that we can do legally that are nevertheless unwise.

I really don't know the details, but many in the UN seemed to think that our invasion of Iraq was not in accord with international law.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I really don't know the details, but many in the UN seemed to think that our invasion of Iraq was not in accord with international law.

Good point. I think Israel also violates international law.

The UK cops killed a guy accidentally the other day- shot him dead, accidentally. the response "We'll probably kill some more people accidentally, we're fighting some serious shit here."

We need to get to that attitude, and we will. 20 years from now the UN won't exist, at least as something someone would cite as an authority.

Originally posted by sgtclub
He never said "imminent" - we had that discussion already.

"Was the attack then an imminent threat two, three, or six months before? When did the attack on September 11th become an imminent threat, when was it sufficiently dangerous? Now transport yourself forward ... if Saddam Hussein were to take his weapons of mass destruction and transfer them, or use them himself, or transfer them to the al Qaeda, and some of the al Qaeda were to engage in an attack on the United States or on U.S. forces overseas with weapons of mass destruction, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"

-- Donald Rumsfeld, November 15, 2002.

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Good point. I think Israel also violates international law.

The UK cops killed a guy accidentally the other day- shot him dead, accidentally. the response "We'll probably kill some more people accidentally, we're fighting some serious shit here."

We need to get to that attitude, and we will. 20 years from now the UN won't exist, at least as something someone would cite as an authority.

But until it's gone it's good enough to cite on the WMD issue.

[ltl/fb]

Q Yes, Scott, can you assure us that Andrew Card did not speak to either -- or did not tell the President or Karl Rove or Scooter Libby or anybody else about the Justice Department investigation?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, again, those questions came up back in October of 2003 and I addressed them at the time.

Q May I ask one follow-up?

MR. McCLELLAN: You may. Go ahead.

Q I know that none of you are speaking about this because it's an ongoing investigation. Can you explain why Alberto Gonzales would go on TV yesterday and do that, and talk about it?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, what he said was already said from this podium back in October of 2003, and I don't think he got into commenting in any substantive way on the discussion. But the President has said that we will be glad to talk about this once the investigation has come to a conclusion, but not until then. And there have certainly been preferences expressed to the White House that we not get into discussing it while it is ongoing.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050725-5.html

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ironweed
But until it's gone it's good enough to cite on the WMD issue.

To show bipartianianship, would Ty or Sebby please respond to this post and show how much sophistry old Ironhead just emitted?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by ironweed
"Was the attack then an imminent threat two, three, or six months before? When did the attack on September 11th become an imminent threat, when was it sufficiently dangerous? Now transport yourself forward ... if Saddam Hussein were to take his weapons of mass destruction and transfer them, or use them himself, or transfer them to the al Qaeda, and some of the al Qaeda were to engage in an attack on the United States or on U.S. forces overseas with weapons of mass destruction, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"

-- Donald Rumsfeld, November 15, 2002.

Your point?