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

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
No one ever talks about prosecution, because he wasn't prosecuted and he was dead before Watergate. The fact is, that legal and history scholars agree almost unanimously that Johnson, Kennedy, and Nixon all committed crimes in their efforts to further prosecution of the Vietnam War.

I don't know if that is an accurate statement, and in adidition, do you really thing they should have all been prosecuted. And that just reconfirms my conviction that, when it comes to national security, it is OK for Presidents to lie.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I'm still waiting for Slave to tell us that this is accurate.


(FYI -- link won't work)

Sorry: http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=30

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Aw, c'mon Penske -- you still believe that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. The "Reasonable Penske Sock" test is an oxymoron.

Not directly. I never believed that they were directly responsible. However, I do believe that Saddam was complicit in a loose conspiracy sort of way. I believe he had a policy of giving terrorists safe haven and passage through his country, his safe harbor of Abu Nidal is enough, in my mind, to make him a legitimate target in the War on Terror. Certainly he had a policy of funding terrorists, eg: $25K post-mortem rewards to the families of Pali homocide bombers.

I believe that the WSJ has detailed some interesting links to the OKC bombing that have never been explored. I believe that he had WMDs and that they probably ended up in Syria.

All in all, I think Bush is remiss in not going after Saudi Arabia, which, along with Syria and Iran are far more egregious terrorist states, but I don't think that invalidates his selection Iraq as a legitimate target. I applaud our successes and expect ultimate victory.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't know if that is an accurate statement, and in adidition, do you really thing they should have all been prosecuted. And that just reconfirms my conviction that, when it comes to national security, it is OK for Presidents to lie.

Is that license unqualified? How far can they go?

[SlaveNoMore]

Sidd Finch
I'm still waiting for Slave to tell us that this is accurate.


(FYI -- link won't work)

Were the liberals responsible for Vatican II?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Is that license unqualified? How far can they go?

This is going to cause an explosion, but I think every President from Eisenhower to W., including Clinton, knew what they were doing when it came to foreign policy. The only exception was Carter (and maybe Johnson in the later years of Vietnam). I think almost every decision they made, from the perspective of the time when they made it, made sense. They all made mistakes, but I think the decisions that led to the mistakes were well thought out and just turned out to be wrong. I think they had the countries best interest in mind and were bright practical people. On the other hand, every time Congress has gotten involved in Foreign policy they have just botched it up. They have just done stupid things, that would lead to obvious disasters: Limiting the funds to Korea, cutting off funds to South Vietnam in 1974, cutting off funds to the Contras etc. Therefore, you don't want to hear my answer.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Is that license unqualified? How far can they go?

It is not OK for the president to lie about the reason he is sending troops to battle. That said, I don't think Bush lied. His statements may not have been accurate, but I don't think he knew that to be the case at the time made.

Cue for Ty to instruct us to read ___________.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
It is not OK for the president to lie about the reason he is sending troops to battle. That said, I don't think Bush lied. His statements may not have been accurate, but I don't think he knew that to be the case at the time made.

Cue for Ty to instruct us to read ___________.

There's no serious dispute that Bush said things that weren't true. In absolving Bush of any bad intent, it's not clear to me what club thinks Bush was thinking.

I don't think Bush believed that he was misleading people. I think he decided upon his Iraq policy, for reasons that he thought were good, and then said what he had to in order to get popular support for it -- ignoring inconsistent facts and pushing whatever evidence there was as far or farther than it supported. Bush lied in the sense that he showed a reckless disregard for the truth.

And we can stop pretending that Bush simply repeated bad intelligence. First, we know that he was leaning on the intel agencies to tell him what he wanted to hear. Second, we know that he said things that went beyond what the intel was supporting.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by sgtclub
It is not OK for the president to lie about the reason he is sending troops to battle. That said, I don't think Bush lied. His statements may not have been accurate, but I don't think he knew that to be the case at the time made.

Cue for Ty to instruct us to read ___________.

2.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
There's no serious dispute that Bush said things that weren't true. In absolving Bush of any bad intent, it's not clear to me what club thinks Bush was thinking.

I don't think Bush believed that he was misleading people. I think he decided upon his Iraq policy, for reasons that he thought were good, and then said what he had to in order to get popular support for it -- ignoring inconsistent facts and pushing whatever evidence there was as far or farther than it supported. Bush lied in the sense that he showed a reckless disregard for the truth.

And we can stop pretending that Bush simply repeated bad intelligence. First, we know that he was leaning on the intel agencies to tell him what he wanted to hear. Second, we know that he said things that went beyond what the intel was supporting.

I disagree with "reckless" and your presumptive use of the word "know" in the last two sentences.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Why don't you just say: I mean, he didn't lie under oath, but lying to send men to die in a war is almost as bad. Or at leat ad under oath to it.

Okay. Lying when testying under oath in a deposition in response to a question of marginal relevance in a sexual harassment suit does not come close -- on any moral scale, and I would hope on any legal scale -- to lying to Congress for the purpose of convincing Congress to send men to die in a war.

It's still perjury, and perjury is still bad. But the punishment for most crimes is keyed to the harm they cause.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
There's no serious dispute that Bush said things that weren't true. In absolving Bush of any bad intent, it's not clear to me what club thinks Bush was thinking.

I don't think Bush believed that he was misleading people. I think he decided upon his Iraq policy, for reasons that he thought were good, and then said what he had to in order to get popular support for it -- ignoring inconsistent facts and pushing whatever evidence there was as far or farther than it supported. Bush lied in the sense that he showed a reckless disregard for the truth.

And we can stop pretending that Bush simply repeated bad intelligence. First, we know that he was leaning on the intel agencies to tell him what he wanted to hear. Second, we know that he said things that went beyond what the intel was supporting.

I would agree with most of this except for the fact that I believe that Bush believed that there were WMDs. Why else would Saddam have been playing those games? As good as our intel is it could not tell him for sure one way or another - and the way Saddam Hussein was acting any reasonble person would have concluded he had WMDs.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Sorry: http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=30

Well, since the more conservative dioceses immediately rose to the challenge, condemned the abusers, purged their ranks of all abusers, and worked to compensate the victims while punishing the wrongdoers, he really does have a point.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Not directly. I never believed that they were directly responsible. However, I do believe that Saddam was complicit in a loose conspiracy sort of way. I believe he had a policy of giving terrorists safe haven and passage through his country, his safe harbor of Abu Nidal is enough, in my mind, to make him a legitimate target in the War on Terror. Certainly he had a policy of funding terrorists, eg: $25K post-mortem rewards to the families of Pali homocide bombers.

Yeah, I remember that being exactly the rationale that Bush & Co. advanced.

I believe that the WSJ has detailed some interesting links to the OKC bombing that have never been explored. I believe that he had WMDs and that they probably ended up in Syria.

Let me guess -- was this on the editorials page?

All in all, I think Bush is remiss in not going after Saudi Arabia, which, along with Syria and Iran are far more egregious terrorist states, but I don't think that invalidates his selection Iraq as a legitimate target. I applaud our successes and expect ultimate victory.

No doubt you are willing to wait the 12 years Rummy (now) says that will take.

Or did you mean the ultimate victory we had when Bush declared our mission Accomplished?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
I disagree with "reckless" and your presumptive use of the word "know" in the last two sentences.

We can table "reckless" for the moment. If you think there wasn't substantial pressure on the intel agencies during the run-up to the war to come up with support for what the Admininistration wanted, you haven't been paying attention. I don't even know where to start on that one.

On the question of what Bush was told and what he said, I'll go back to an easy example for me to run down:

• On Friday, September 6, Franks and Rumsfeld briefed the president and the NSC on the latest war planning. . . . General Franks had something important to add. "Mr. President," he said, "we've been looking for Scud missiles and other weapons of mass destruction for ten years and haven't found any yet, so I can't tell you that I know that there are any specific weapons anywhere. I haven't seen Scud one."

Plan of Attack 173

• [On Saturday, September 7,] Blair and Bush took questions from reporters. They said they were committed to ending Saddam's threat one and for all. How or when went unanswered. Bush asserted unequivocally, "Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction."

Plan of Attack 178

Bush's top general tells him they haven't found any WMD in ten years of looking, and the next day he's telling journalists -- unequivocally -- that Hussein has them.

I don't think Bush is stupid enough to screw that up -- do you?