Must read WaPo article breaks down Kay Report, makes clear Bush's treason

If your point is that Bush's performance is approved by a majority of Americans - at least technically, and by such a resounding amount that the margin of error could swing him under 50% - then you've made that point better than any of us could.

 

I don't have time to respond to your entire thread right now, but I do want to touch on this point.


I had written

"I think the administration was clear that the threat was more potential than immediate. And the president himself made it clear in his speech to the U.N. that it was also about the principal that Sadam had continually violated the resolutions that were the result of the Gulf war, and we could not allow him to get away with that.

and you replied

I hope everyone reads Powells speech, because it does indeed lay out the position of the administration. Much of the speech concerns UN security council resolution 441 and Iraq’s breech of that resolution. In fact the Kay report provided further evidence that Iraq was in violation of that resolution right up until the time of the war.

This quote does tend to support your point about the immediate threat.

But he went on to also say

So the problem was once again that Iraq was not co-operating, and that is what was the most dangerous. The fact is that it would be impossible for inspectors to be 100% sure that they have found everything, and very small amounts of chemical and bilogical material can have very large impacts, so that was why cooperation was critical. He also went on to expand on why Saddam posed a danger.

Once again the problem is that there was just no way to trust Hussein. He sums it up well in this sentence.

I especiall like that point about an even more frightening future. That seems to jive with what I was saying. He then goes on to say.

Which also jives with my point that the administration knew that the cooperation they were getting from Saddam was a function of the enormous pressure that we were putting on, but that it would have been impossible to maintain that level of pressure. He then goes on to summarize:

That sounds a lot like some of the things I have said here.

As far as Wolfowitz goes the article states:

That sounds to me like Wolfowitz was focusing on the long term danger of doing nothing, more than the short term threat.

 

So ... what you're saying is that now we're really in the shit? You know, what with 0% of the stuff having been found and the increased opportunities for it to be dispersed throughout the lawless morass that most of Iraq has become.

Oh no - hang on. We agreed yesterday that none of these alleged weapons or weapons programmes actually existed, didn't we.

Whichever way you twist it - there was no threat that justified war, no outcome that justified war (no, not even "getting rid of" a bad man) and nothiner the war has achieved has had any impact on our security here in the west, short term or long term.

 

Dave, Matt, Bungadiri, Dan, Mel, Demo and all:

Thank you for letting the Right here show just how far into pathological denial of the incredibly fucking obvious they are.

The pro-war folks here have made this thread a fascinating psychological study in the human capacity for self-delusion and denial. I may just forward the URL to this thread to the American Psychological Association as they'd doubtless find it a rich trove of material for studying the dodges, sophistry and other psychological gymnastics used by the Right here.

 

Yes indeed the situation in Iraq is still very dangerous. I think without the direction of Saddam, the possibility of clandestine activities sophisticated enough to create this stuff is lower, but indeed if we were to abandon Iraq now, we would be worse off than if we had never gone there. That is why I keep harping on the long run. It is absolutely essential that our policy in Iraq be succesful in the long run.

I think the programmes clearly existed prior to the U.S. buildup, and the Kay report made it clear that Saddam had no intention of completely abandoning them, Efforts were alway being made by saddam to get away with as much as he thought he could.

I'm not trying to twist anything. I think it is your side who has been trying to twist things. Like I said, I hope everyone reads Powell's speech to the U.N. to see that it is not some hysterical appeal to mushroom clouds, that people here have been claiming was the administrations policy.

How can you say "has achieved" and then say "or long term?"

Are you saying what has happened to date is the "long term"? If not then the question of the long term achievements has yet to be settled.

 

Joseph,

Than you for showing what self righteous, ass holes there are on the left.

 

They're not self-righteous. They're just right in this particular instance.

 

No I feel the president should be accurate also. If the president made a statement of fact that was inaccurate he should be held responsible for it, and indeed he took a good drubbing over his use of the uranium issue in the state of the union address.

Well, the facts show that Clinton did indeed commit perjury in the Monica Lewinski affair, yet the Democrats defended him 'till the end on that issue, is some precedent for defending your president no matter what from the left.

The war.

We have not abandoned Afghanistan.

I don't recall harping on the 'liberal media', I would harp more on the 'sensationalist' media, both on the left and the right, sound bites often are more important than presenting a detailed analysis of more mundane facts.

 

Think it through, Sparky. Anything 'the war has achieved' (subject: war, timeframe: now) has done nothing for our long-term safety (subject: safety, timeframe: long-term).

Granted, if the increasingly fantastical evocations of Iraq's apparent future by the Bush administration actually come to pass in some miraculous way, then we may have to revisit that argument. But I've got a whole squadron of airborne bacon that says we ain't going there.

As Joseph said ... stop wriggling and accept the obvious truth. You've been lied to and now you spend all the time you could devote to coming to terms with that on trying to fabricate 'after the fact' rationalisations which make that a slightly less bitter blow to the psyche.

It's all rather tragic, at the end of the day.

 

I was speaking of Josephs post.

Do you really think such a post is appropriate?

 

Why the use of the pajoarative term?

That sound fair to me. If 10 years from now, Iraq is still in as bade a shape as it is now, I would be willing to admit I misjuged the possibility of long term benifits.

It's not after the fact at all. Like I said, I will stand by Powell's speech, which was made before the fact.

You guys keep relying on the fact that no WMD were found, which was after the fact. What would you say if tomorrow a secret hideaway was discovered where 20 mobile biological weapons labs were hidden?

Actually what will be tragic, is when we finally stabilize the situation in Iraq, and all of the anti-war people will have to sit their and be upset about it, instead of being happy.

 

1-drubbing?! that guy gets a drubbing when he snacks on a pretzel - i'm not interested in a 'drubbing', i'm talking legal implications here

2-first of all, i assure you that this does not refer to me personally - second of all, why is that the immediate reply when someone accuses bush of lying to congress and america to get his war? are these things of equal importance? frankly, the act of trying to impeach a president over infidelity is about the most freakin' ridiculous waste of federal money, newsprint and time i have ever seen... RIDICULOUS

3-so if iraq becomes a real life beacon, was it worth the war? hmmm... eliminate the lying... ok then... no - i would not be willing to ruin countless american lives to clean up messes halfway around the world, but that's just me

4-no? ok so i exaggerated a bit... we haven't TOTALLY abandoned afghanistan... just mostly - the place is gettin' hairy again and the taliban are putting in new roots - besides, didn't rummy just admit the other day that we have neglected the war on terrorism to fight the war in iraq?

5-i wasn't referring to you then was i?

 

do you realize how what an amazing amount of what if's you use to defend the administration?

even if this were a fair criticism... tell that to the wifes who lost husbands, the parents who lost sons and daughters, the children that lost daddy - should they become enamored with the war process then also? i have no respect for politicians and their supporters who are blazingly pro-war... i mean it's all so easy for them to wave their flag from the recliner isn't it?

 

does that go for bush as well mike?

 

I suppose if you had been in charge the world would be the USA, Germany and Japan...period!

 

i was only commenting on the issue at hand

 

1) that they were so well hidden and secret that those who are still attacking our troops didn't even find them.

2) that all those intelligence agents still working on the WMD issue instead of trying to figure out ways to prevent or minimize attacks can finally be put to better use, now that they successfully planted 20 mobile biological weapons labs.

I'll be ecstatic. It will mean my nephew, whose tour has already been extended twice, will be coming home long enough to get to know his newborn son. Unless of course he's assigned to go actually stabilize Afghanistan. Or to destablize, Iran, Syria, North Korea, or some as yet undisclosed nation.

 

This is the problem with liberals. You state that even if we do find what we are looking for you would say it was planted. What if there was actual proof (say video tapes of Saddam at these labs talking about what they have and how it could be used) would your attitude change? Doubt it. This is a typical liberal idea, negativity at all costs, bashing instead of solving, always go after an idea that wasn't your, even it proves to be right.

 

If you try to argue a debatable point where the evidence is inconclusive at best and I call you self-deluded, then you might be able to get away with calling me self-righteous.

If you try to deny the freaking obvious (as demonstrated by the vast preponderance of the available evidence) such as that the world is round or that the Bush team lied to start a war, then the term "self-deluded" is an objective description, not an exercise in self-righteousness.

I'm sure it's no fun to recognize that you're self-deluded but then you've pretty much brought that on yourself. Blaming me for pointing it out to you is just refusing to take responsibility for your own beliefs and actions. Then again, if you were capable of changing your mind based on objective evidence, you wouldn't be providing so much fodder here for psychopathologists, would you?

 

actually his first point is quite astute

yes, the second one is cynical... but to be perfectly honest... that is likely the intial reaction i would have - remind me, exactly why should i trust this administration? - and please note that you added the 'what if' after he posted and give him a chance to answer, don't just assume that he would overlook it because that would sound much like negative bashing

 

I would call it "sarcastic" myself, rather than cynical, and only the second part of the second point. I can't imagine that there aren't some US soldiers in Iraq who think more intelligence effort should be expended toward the increasingly bold attacks, and let the WMD stuff slide for awhile, if not bagging it all together.

But anyway, house, why should I trust the Bush administration? They cut VA bennies and ... well, you know the rest. You might deny it, but you know it.

 

And even if any of that were true.

Why the F. do you feel the need to make me or any other poster the topic for discussion in a thread.

 

And I resent the implication that anyone who supports a war puts any less value on lives of the husbands or sons or daughters lost. I have only the utmost respect for our soldiers, but sometimes you have to be willing to put sodiers in harms way for the long term goal of peace.

 

Please explain how this is not perjury:

or this

Was Clinton truthful when he claimed no specific recollections of beng alone with Monica Lewinski?

or this:

Was Clinton truthful when he claimed he didn't believe he was ever alone in the hallway with monica Lewinski? Do you honestly believe he just didn't remember the incidents that happened in that hallway?

Of course in his own Grand Jury testimony he testified

On another issue Clinton Testified.

But as a matter of fact the hat pin that Clinton had given Lewinski was very much an issue when Lewinski was supoenad, and she had a discussion with clinton about that specific Item. For Clinton to claim he had no recollection of that specific gift is a flat out lie.

This doesn't even include all of his perjury concerning the obstruction of justice.