posted
A country should not go to war on iffy intelligence.
quote:If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.
It's still too early yet to tell, but if they did that I should think that an investigation could prove it.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, "iffy" is relative to the time and source. Post 9/11, any information considered "credible" is going to be acted on to avoid recriminations after the fact if something preventable were to occur. Look at all the finger-pointing after 9/11. It's thought better to act against a known agressor on information considered credible than to sit and wait for an attack.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Intelligence gathering is never 100%, still the allegations against Mr. Bush are that he ignored information in conflict with his plan to invade Iraq and made his case to the American people in unequivocal terms.
In short, that Mr. Bush manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get what he wanted.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
And that's diffrent from what every Predident does how? I'm not saying it's right, but it is part of the bullshit that we've all come to expect from world leaders.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Unless we put a stop to it that is all we can ever expect to get.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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I'd rather put a stop to lobbiests running the government on behalf of mega-corporations.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I think that because the intelligence given to the inspectors, which the US claims was their best intelligence, was refuted so easily means that the US should have gone back and checked again whether their intelligence was sound. If you present an arguement and someone refutes it over and over again, to continue with your arguement means, you are either lying about it or you are too stupid to realise you are wrong.
-------------------- "and none of your usual boobery." M. Burns
Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Those are EXACTLY the two situations. Either Bush and Blair lied to us, or they were too stupid to realize that, because the inspectors found no WMD, then they did not have them. If their intelligence was bad, then the fact that the inspectors found nothing should have been a clue. And, the people who are saying, "Oh, it was Saddam's job to give the inspectors his WMDs when they came" are just looking for excuses, because he could not have done that because he did not have the weapons. And, on another note, it seems that there is much speculation about whether those "mobile chemical lab trailers" or whatever were what they are said to be. So, if that is the case and they were not weapons trailers, then our administration has been lying to us AGAIN for the past several days.
Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
quote:Originally posted by Cartmaniac: It amuses me that whenever Rob screams "Clinton did it too!" at the top of his lungs in response to Bush being criticized, he's commiting the exact same "TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE ONE RIGHT!" fallacy he always accuses his opponents of.
From what I hear, four wrongs squared, times two wrongs to the fourth power, divided by a particular formula DO make a right.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
and if you do it in reverse, you get a left...
The fact that Blix has come out and said the intel he was given was crap, combined with the fact that all that the coalition teams have found are 2 trucks which may or may not be mobile biological labs it does seem a bit suspicious. Especially with the claims that the dossier that was released been altered in some way by Downing Street.
Of course, it could just be 'rogue elements' in the security services. Because if you can't trust an ex-member of the Communist Party, who can you trust?
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
You don't trust the government? Don't let Herr Ashcroft's secret internet police hear that.
Did they have WMD's? Mabye.
Were they in UN Violation of the treaties they signed to end the Gulf War? Yes.
Should we have invaded Iraq and freed it's people? Yes: ten years ago.
The biggest bitch I have about the war is not the legality of it or Kofi whining because his pupett U.N. was ignored. It's that we have not captured or killed Saddam himself. The man's a butcher on par with his idol: Stalin. Untill he, and his murdering rapist fuck sons are either in jail or a grave there is only a hollow victory.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Now, if you hadn't given Saddam a carte blanche thirty years ago, or turned a blind eye when he pulled an Auschwitz: The Sequel on the Kurds with top-grade CIA nerve gas, the past decade or so MIGHT have been more pleasant for the Iraqi people.
But far be it from me to smudge the silky moral fibre of the U! S! A!, a Divine Force of Good that concerns itself with the well-being of humans throughout the globe, as it demonstrated time and again in Cambodja, Chile, Iran... history is rife with such Acts of Benevolence!
But, y'know, just so there won't be any misunderstanding, I *am*, somewhere deep down, glad humanity has one less fuckwit in its midst.
[ June 08, 2003, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: Cartmaniac ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Actually, Saddam is likely still alive. So, he's still in humanity's midst, just not capable of doing anything. And so is Osama bin Laden. And there are plenty of other ruthless dictators out there, just that they are our strategically important allies and, therefore, "double-plus democratic."
posted
I'm all for human rights, fair trials, due process and political change by the people's will.
That being said, someone needs to just kill these bastards (Bin Laden, Saddam, etc.).
It should be their own people that do it so they'll have some closeure from the millions Saddam has killed (or to curtail the fanatisim BBim Laden spreads)but if the US has to do it and pisses off the world as a result, I can live with that.
Yes, the US was in bed with these scmbags and it is shameful. But don't think for even a minute that only the US was in that bed: When it was a biiig chess match of the West against the evil Communists, everybody was paying evil fucks like these to fight the USSR. The UN gave them food, medical supplies and logistic support in "humanatarian aid". The US, France, Germany, Canada, Britan, Japan and almost certainly Austrailla all either contributed or sold rescourses or equipment to these same fuckers so the West could sleep easier at night knowing it was helping "freedom fighters" defend themselves. I'm NOT saying the US was right to equip these nut-jobs in the first place, but please do NOT single out the US as "helping" them if you're going to leave out all our partners in those sorry ventures.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Why we didn't remove Saddam, the short-short version:
1980's: We haten the Iranians more. They hated us more, too. The Iraqis hated the Iranians. They also hated the Communists. This made their leadership seem slightly less evil than the rest of the Middle East.
1991: We had the choice between removing Saddam on our own, or maintaining the fragile "coalition" created to drive him out of Kuwait. We chose poorly.
1992-2000: Sitting president more concerned with polls, interns, avoiding impeachment, bombing cardboard targets in Kosovo, restoring dictator to Haiti.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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