Fred the Red Shirt Found what Dan Rather Couldn't

"Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> > Sorry Fred, I lost your post from about 2 days ago re. where Bush lied
and
> > it's just not worth it to google it back up anyway.
>
> I don't believe you are sorry at all. Not looking up my article
> saves you the trouble of addressing the examples of Bush lying
> that I actually presented and perhaps in your mind at least allows
> you the latitude to attribute claimes ot myself that I did not post.

No it really just means that I don't have a lot of free time on my hands to
dig it up. It's not easy starting a new business and all. I did check
google but couldn't find that post for some reason. No matter though, I
will address your issues.
>
> >
> > I asked for a simple instance of proof where Bush lied, and you wrote a
> > dissertation on everything but that.
>
> I gave you two examples in this thread. One was the lie frequently
> made by Bush, that those who opposed the invasion thought Saddam
> Hussein could be trusted. You offered two defenses:
>
> 1) That you didn't remember Bush saying that.

I never said that. You are confusing me with someone else.

>
> 2) Deliberate and malicious misrepresentation of another person's
> point of view was not lying, it was the expression of an opinon.
>

Again, I never said that. You are the one saying it is "deliberate and
malicious." Whether it is so is debatable. I said, if I recall correctly
(it was a while ago), that what you are calling lies are, IMO, matters of
opinion. If I deliberately and maliciously misrepresent your statements
then they are lies.

> I then went on to explain that it was my opinion that deliberate
> misrepresentation of another person's point of view was lying.
> ISTR you argued that misrepresentation is a synonym for lying.

Well, yes I accused you of calling Bush a liar. You denied that and after
about 3 posts finally came around and agreed. Now you can't stop calling
him one. How funny is that?

I recall perfectly well when Bush said that people who wanted to leave
Saddam in power were putting their trust in a madman. It is pretty clear he
said that. I believe there are plenty of people who (1) thought Saddam was
cooperating with the UN well enough if not perfectly and wasn't really a
threat (those people clearly fit Bush's description). There were others,
like maybe yourself, who (2) did not trust Saddam as far as you could throw
him, yet were against invasion. Those types put more trust in the UN
resolutions and weapons inspectors to keep him in a box. I believe Bush's
point is that no matter what camp you are in, you really do have to put some
amount of trust in Saddam eventually even if you don't realize you are doing
so. Look at just the inspection programs. You can't have an effective
inspection if Saddam isn't cooperating with them and is undermining the
process at every turn, can you? Are you sure you aren't putting some trust
in Saddam to cooperate when you push for more inspections? Let's say you
counter that point by saying that you're not trusting Saddam, and even
though he doesn't cooperate, the inspections take time and effort for Saddam
to counteract. Is that really the most effective policy? You could take
that position, that pushing for more inspections does not require trust in
Saddam, but I think this is a very nuanced point and not one most people,
other than you, might take.

The reality is that Saddam did everything but cooperate with inspectors and
the UN in general. Leaving Saddam in power would amount to trusting that he
no longer help train and pay reward for terrorists, continue to develop WMDs
and so on. You just can't prevent him from doing all the bad stuff that he
wanted to do. Bush said that people who want to leave Saddam in power are
relying on a madman to keep his word. The fact that some of those "anti
war" people don't realize that they are, in effect, going to have to trust
Saddam at some point doesn't make his statement false.

But let's say you disagree with everything I just said, which I'm pretty
sure is the case. This is a far cry from a lie. It is his position (imo)
that people who want to leave the man in power are, in effect, trusting that
he do the right thing whether they realize it or not. That just isn't a
lie. It is an opinion. Isn't it pretty plain and simple to see that it is
his opinion? I mean, did Bush ever profess to have proof that everybody on
Earth who opposed invasion trusted the man?

Kerry says, "It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Well, a lot of people thing it was the right war in the right place at the
right time. Does that make Kerry a liar? I think it does ONLY if Kerry
really, truly believes it was the right thing to do but is just saying that
to get elected. There's no reason to think Bush believed anything other
than what he was saying about defeating Saddam.

I just don't see a lie on this one, and neither did Dan Rather.


>
> The second example of Bush lying was an instance in which he claimed
> to have previously made a statement that he had not. The statement
> in question was in fact a paraphrasal of a statement frequently made
> by Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. Had Bush said "I always believed
> that ...." then one could possibly argue that he had secretly always
> agreed with the Gore statement, even though it had never passed his lips
> in public. But that is not what he said. What he said was "I always
> said that...' when in fact he NEVER said it. That's a lie.

Like I said before, I'm not so quick to believe one reporter's review of
everything that was said during an entire political campaign. I don't know
if Bush was taken out of context which happens so frequently. Did Bush say
that he said that during campaign speeches? I'll give you one and say that
maybe Bush did lie about this. The jury is open and certainly not proven.
You don't take one reporter's word on anything. Dan Rather taught that
lesson well.

>
> Your defense of Bush, as I recall, was an obfuscating paragraph
> about deficits. Not very honest on your part, eh?

Don't remember it. Maybe someone else said that like the other stuff you
attributed to me.

>
> In another thread I referred you to an instance in which Bush claimed
> that the IAEA stated a conclusion in a report which the IAEA had
> not. You never addressed that false attribution on Bush's part.
> Maybe you do not consider a false statement about what an organization
> has reported to be lying, I do.

I know nothing about it. My instinct again is that there is more to the
story. You don't seem to understand that people can say things that are not
true, yet not be lying. He has a staff, he has intelligence reports and on
and on. Do you consider yourself to be lying everytime you say something
that turns out not to be true?

>
> I also cited the false statement that Bush made about the Medusa
> missle tubes. You ignored that.

See above.

>
> I also cited a false statement Bush made about a report on quantities
> of unacounted for growth media in January, 2003. You ignored that.

See above.

>
> Of course I already covered this ground in the earlier article you
> didn't bother to review befor writing your reply.

You apparently didn't understand anything I said earlier about lying. You
aren't showing me any proof of lying. I'll take you at your word (for the
sake of argument) that he said things that were not backed up by the
reports. Now prove to me he was lying. You can't, and Dan Rather can't.
If you tried to sue the President for lying, what would your evidence be?
Give me a secret Oval Office tape recording where Bush says, "Now we're
gonna take this here IAEA report as evidence and throw in a few of our own
conclusions...nobody, not even Dan Rather, is going to notice."

>
> > I look at it another way. Dan Rather,
> > by any objective standard, leans considerably to the left. This had to
be a
> > factor in his problems with the Bush TANG debacle. Now, don't you think
if
> > there were any evidence that the President of the US LIED about
intelligence
> > or anything else to justify going to war that this would be big news?
>
> I look at your introduction of Dan Rather into this, er, discussion
> to be obfuscation. If you want to discuss examples I gave of Bush
> lying then why not discuss examples I gave of Bush lying?

The fact that you say Rather is obfuscation shows me that you are more
interested in defending your turf than you are in actually understanding
what I am saying. I'm really not trying to attack you, I'm just trying to
get you to realize that you have already convicted Bush of being a liar, and
are using these different examples of what appears, at worst, to be
intelligence or communication errors, or errors in the media reports you are
reading (ie, out of context reporting). You've got it backwards. Go find
some real lies and then you can think poorly of his character.

>
> If I say that the Warren Comission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald
> acted in concert with others I would be lying becuase that is NOT
> what the Warren Comission said. Similarly, when Bush claimed that
> the IAEA or UNMOVIC reported something they did not report, Bush lied
> regardless of whether or not the report itself was true.

Of course, and how stupid would Bush have to be to stand in front of
reporters at a press conference and have to defend the indefensible? I
don't believe it was that simple, sorry. Unlike you, I come from the
standpoint of giving him the benefit of the doubt. The whole point about
Dan Rather is a metaphor for the mainstream media at large. If there were
clear lies, LIES, NOT OPINIONS, don't you think we'd be having nightly
newscasts about how it is now "DAY 43" in the president's refusal to answer
charges of lying to the American people? The fact that they had to go back
to some stupid forged documents (which they STILL do not admit were forged)
about an inconsequential subject proves to me that there's nothing to this
lying stuff.

>
> Do you get it yet? The issue of Bush lying is separate from the
> issue of WMDs in Iraq.

Uh, I never said the two were linked...must've been that other guy.

>
> However, the observation that all of the falsifieable statements
> made by the Bush/Blair administration IRT Iraqi WMDs have been
> falsified does little to inspire confidence in their honesty,
> doesn't it?

Not really. You have just indicted every politician in every nation for the
last decade, all of whom were convinced that Saddam had lots of bad stuff.
I'm perfectly content in saying this was a non-partisan screw up, even
though it hasn't been proven that he weapons weren't moved out of country,
or aren't still there. I'll agree that there wasn't much in the way of
nuclear stuff yet, but there was plenty in the works after the sanctions
were lifted. That's proven. That and the tons of uranium that were removed
from Iraq.


>
> Evidently you can be bothered to post ad hominems and false statements
> about my opinions and the motives behind them, but STILL cannot be
> bothered to check out the basis for that _World Tribune_ article.
>

I think you have a very thin skin if you believe I've been throwing ad
hominems at you. In fact, I'm the one who admitted that you know more about
UNMOVIC details than I did, and what did I get in return? -- a barrage of
nasty comments.


> > I think this is an
> > artifact of your aim to call the President a liar at all costs.
>
> I think you're either one of the laziest people to ever post on
> the internet or patently dishonest. You have never once in this
> discussion shown any dilligence yourself, you just jump straight
> to accusations against me.

The only thing I've accused you of is calling the president a liar, which
you eventually proved me right on, and misunderstanding what proof of a lie
constitues. I'm sorry if you somehow see that as an attack.

>
> Returning to the very first example I gave, that of Bush saying that
> those who opposed the invasion of Iraq thought Saddam Hussein could
> be trusted, have you yet tried to ascertain if he said that or not?

Again, I didn't say that, and if I did say anything remotely like that it
was in a completely different context. I clearly remember him saying that,
but I recall the word "madman" in there as well.

>
> > Eventually you get into a situation like Clinton talking about the
> > definition of "is." Is that the company you really want to keep?
>
> Clinton and Bush, no I do not care to hang out with them.
>
> Nor you, it would seem.

Try not to take things so personally. Maybe your defensiveness keeps you
from understanding my side of the discussion. I completely understand
yours, but it is clear to me that you have indicted the man based on a
misunderstanding of his motives.

dwhite

"Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> > "Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]...
> > > "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:<[email protected]>...
> > > > Sorry Fred, I lost your post from about 2 days ago re. where Bush
lied
> > and
> > > > it's just not worth it to google it back up anyway.
> > >
> > > I don't believe you are sorry at all. Not looking up my article
> > > saves you the trouble of addressing the examples of Bush lying
> > > that I actually presented and perhaps in your mind at least allows
> > > you the latitude to attribute claimes ot myself that I did not post.
> >
> > No it really just means that I don't have a lot of free time on my hands
to
> > dig it up. It's not easy starting a new business and all. I did check
> > google but couldn't find that post for some reason. No matter though, I
> > will address your issues.
>
> Did it occur to you that maybe you could not find the article you
> remembered because you did not remember it accurately? Like, maybe
> you were seraching for strings that did not appear in articles I
> wrote because I did not write what you remembered?
>
> You're not able to address the issues accurately if you rely only on
> your memory. No one could, but at least some realize that and
> either make a conservative choice to either do some checking or STFU.
>
> As you may recall, what ticked me off was when you refused to look
> as the evidence I posted about one of your sources being bogus.
> It's not like I was nitpicking on that (anonymous) author.
>
> If you would actually compare the _World Tribune_ article you posted,
> with the UNMOVIC report they claimed to be reporting on, you'd
> see just how dishonest they were. Don't trust me, check it out
> for yourself. This is not an issue of whether the _World Tribune_
> was right on the facts and UNMOVIC wrong. The _World Tribune_
> claimed the UNMOVIC report was its source.
>
> You went on to say that you didn't care if Iraq had WMDs or not,
> Sadam Hussein needed to be deposed anyways. That is an opinion
> I can respect even though disagreeing with the prioritization and
> methodology.

I looked up the World Tribune thing in a few minutes and if it is wrong it
is wrong. I'll concede for argument's sake your point that Bush may have
said some things that are contrary to the UNMOVIC report. My point is that
there is more than one explanation for the discrepancy. Bush haters jump on
"He lied, he lied!" I give him the benefit of the doubt until someone in a
position to know all the facts, ie, a reputable reporter looking to make a
name for himself, can prove there was a lie perpetrated. Nobody reputable
in this election year has come forward with anything. I think that means
something.

>
> But you then went on to say that you hadn't been following the
> issue of Iraqi WMDs since befor the war. Again, by itself, that
> wouldn't bother me since you did not think it was the issue on
> which to base a decision. What ticked me off was that you had
> been and continue to argue the WMD issue despite the fact that
> you had not been following the issue.

I don't know that I had been arguing it that much. I think everybody knows
he has used them, had unaccounted stockpiles (correct?), and had nuclear
scientists hiding nuclear weapons plans in their garden until the sanctions
could be lifted. He was also bribing the UN, the French, among God knows
how many others. I know what Powell's testimony showed, although I do not
know the follow up to to that testimony since after the war. In any case,
the testimony showed an organized effort by Iraqi generals to stymie the UN
inspections, among other things that couldn't be ignored. I don't think
there's a whole lot more that I need to know beyond those facts as they feed
into the whole of why we took him out.

I'm not here to tick you off or get into a pissing match. Hell, I'd just as
soon drop the whole thing, but last time I tried that I was vilified and
chastised.

>
> > >
> > > >
> > > > I asked for a simple instance of proof where Bush lied, and you
wrote a
> > > > dissertation on everything but that.
> > >
> > > I gave you two examples in this thread. One was the lie frequently
> > > made by Bush, that those who opposed the invasion thought Saddam
> > > Hussein could be trusted. You offered two defenses:
> > >
> > > 1) That you didn't remember Bush saying that.
> >
> > I never said that. You are confusing me with someone else.
>
> No, I misremembered your exact words:
>
>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=rw54d.5%246X1.22991%40news4.srv.hcvlny
.cv.net&output=gplain>
>
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
>
> I doubt Bush ever said that everybody opposed to the invasion
> necessarily
> trusts SH.
>
> It was my interpretation and assumption that you did not remember him
> saying it, else you would not have doubted that he ever said it.
>
> The reader is encouraged to review that article and a few that
> preceded
> it to keep the context straight. I'm trying to preserve the context
> of
> the parts I quote, but may have not understood Mr White well
> enough to have done so accurately.

OK so you were wrong about that, but I can see why. We were talking about
slightly different things. I think it is a stretch to say that Bush
believed that EVERYBODY who was against the war trusted Saddam. I think he
was referring to people who said "give inspectors a chance." Well effective
inspections require Saddam to cooperate, plain and simple. If he's not
cooperating, then he's hiding something, or the desire to do something and
that ain't good enough post 9/11.

snip

> *I* said and still say that Bush deliberately and maliciously mis-
> represented the reasons we were opposed to the invasion.

You are entitled to your opinion.

>
> To my knowledge, no one argued that Sadadm Hussein could be trusted,
> and you certainly have never shown that any one did say that. There
> were many arguments advanced by those of us were oppose to the
> invasion and Bush never addressed any of them. One principle argument
> IMHO can be summarized as that we could rely on vigilance and
> deterrance.
> To equate vigilance and deterrance with trust is a malicious mis-
> representation.

I don't think equating those two is malicious. Vigilance and deterrance are
not good enough for me when the guy you are trying to keep in that box keeps
trying to get out of it, and has found a way to bribe the system and cause
it to become even more ineffectual than it already was. That's when he
starts back up with the nukes et al. Like I said before, effective
inspections require cooperation that we just didn't have.

>
> You also wrote:
>
> You just said they didn't resist the UN in 2003.
> The implication is that they had nothing to hide and so must not
> really have any WMDs. So you are trusting SH's word that they have
> nothing to hide.
> ...
> I think some people who think they do not trust SH really are
> doing so without even knowing it.
>
> The implication of those remarks is that I think Saddam Hussein
> could be trusted. I assure you that is a misrepresentation
> of my opinion. It appears to be malicious as the alternative
> explanation is an extreme degree of density.

Well you are probably in the extreme minority. I think most anti war people
think that we could have negotiated Saddam into changing his behavior.

>
> >
> > > I then went on to explain that it was my opinion that deliberate
> > > misrepresentation of another person's point of view was lying.
> > > ISTR you argued that misrepresentation is a synonym for lying.
> >
> > Well, yes I accused you of calling Bush a liar. You denied that and
after
> > about 3 posts finally came around and agreed. Now you can't stop
calling
> > him one. How funny is that?
>
> What you just wrote is quite pathetic, not funny. I did not deny
> calling Bush a liar. I denied calling Bush a liar for the reasons
> you falsely attributed to me:

snip
>
> Evidently you didn't get it the first time. Do you get it this time?
> I hold my opinions for the reasons I present to you, not for
> reasons you invernt for the purpose of rebuttal. See also
> "straw man".

You know, this thread is getting too long and I don't care anymore how this
got started so I'm just deleting this part. I'll accept whatever you like
on this one. You win.

>
> >
> > I recall perfectly well when Bush said that people who wanted to leave
> > Saddam in power were putting their trust in a madman. It is pretty
clear he
> > said that.
>
> Now you do. Evidently not so befor, unless you attach more
> significance
> to your use of the word 'necessarily' than I do. IMHO the absence of
> any reference to any alternative viewpoint implies 'necessarily'.

Let's say there are 100 people in an auditorium, 99 of whom believe we
should trust that Saddam will give up his weapons ambition if we only
inspect some more. There's 1 guy, you, who does not believe this yet still
thinks we shouldn't go to war. Bush says that all those people in that
auditorium would rather trust Saddam than defeat him. If you want to call
him malicious for that then so be it. I contend that the many of the people
against the war are naive and/or passivists and wouldn't approve force under
any conditions, or unless a democrat were in office. The thrust of what
Bush said still holds. I said that he never said *every last person* in the
auditorium believed that. I think the issue stuck out for you because you
are that 1 guy and I understand how that would be annoying. Then again, I
don't know what the context of his comment was. If the topic was on waiting
on more inspections, then it is clear that he is referring only to people
who think inspections can make him become peaceful.

>
> I'l allow as he may have said madman sometimes, and other times
> said "Saddam Hussien" or just "Saddam".
>
> > I believe there are plenty of people who (1) thought Saddam was
> > cooperating with the UN well enough if not perfectly and wasn't really a
> > threat (those people clearly fit Bush's description). There were
others,
> > like maybe yourself, who (2) did not trust Saddam as far as you could
throw
> > him, yet were against invasion. Those types put more trust in the UN
> > resolutions and weapons inspectors to keep him in a box.
>
> That's a reasonably accurate assessment, of part, but only part of the
> argfument.
>
> I'll add that there
> was also deterrance. The last time he attacked a neighboring country
> it was an unmitigated disaster for Iraq and the time befor that he
> was fought to a standstill despite his alliance with the world's
> strongest superpower as well as some support from the Soviet Union.
> The one thing I did trust Saddam Hussein to do was to try to remain
> in power. And THAT worked well to our advantage.

Do remember that Kerry voted against Gulf War 1.

>
> > I believe Bush's
> > point is that no matter what camp you are in, you really do have to put
some
> > amount of trust in Saddam eventually even if you don't realize you are
doing
> > so. Look at just the inspection programs. You can't have an effective
> > inspection if Saddam isn't cooperating with them and is undermining the
> > process at every turn, can you?
>
> Actually you can. An active inspections program would impose
> significant
> obstacles on any attempt to make proscribed weapons. It might not be
> possible to find well-hidden weapons but any effort to move them
> around
> would risk discovery. Any effort to manufacture more would risk
> discovery.
> One of the poorly understood technical issues was the short shelf
> life of the Iraqi munitions, a few years at best. His binary
> munitions
> (and BTW thank you for promtping me to look into that further) might
> last longer than the others but we haven't seen any real estimates of
> the quality of his binaries nor estimates of their longevity. Clearly
> there was every reason to suppose they were inferior to US binary
> munitions.
>
> For technical reasons, keeping a nuclear enrichment program or an
> operating reactor hidden with inspectors in-country was not even
> a remote possiblity. The kilogram quantities of U-235 seized by
> UNSCOM were refined prior to 1991.

I don't feel comfortable relying on a program of containment to keep him
from getting WMD's manufactured or distributed for terrorists. This gets
into the other reasons for taking him out, but that is a whole other debate
I won't get into. This has been more than enough, thanks.

>
> > Are you sure you aren't putting some trust
> > in Saddam to cooperate when you push for more inspections? Let's say
you
> > counter that point by saying that you're not trusting Saddam, and even
> > though he doesn't cooperate, the inspections take time and effort for
Saddam
> > to counteract. Is that really the most effective policy?
>
> As I said, I trusted Sadam Hussein to do anything necessary to stay
> in power. Otherwise, you well represent my position.

Agree to disagree.

>
> As to effectiveness, the most likely forseeable effects of an
> invasion,
> IRT to WMDS were:
>
> 1) Immediate use against the Coalition forces.
>
> 2) Proliferation as paramilitary groups get hold of the WMDs when
> Saddam Hussein loses control. I did not want to see WMDs in
> the hands of Hammas, Hezbollah etc.
>
> IMHO both of these were less desirable than continuing the inspection
> program and no-fly zones until Saddam Hussein died of old age. Maybe
> his sons would have been just as bad, maybe not, maybe they'd have
> been assasinated or overthrown. Just about all the forseeable
> consequences of the inspections program were better than 1) and
> 2) above.

You are comparing the worst case scenarios of an invasion against the best
case scenarios of containment and inspection. What you are calling "most
likely" are not necessarily so. What are the consequences of a worst case
scenario of containment and inspection and how do they stack up? Not so
much different I think. What are the best case scenarios of both options.
Clearly the invasion best case is way better for the region as a whole, and
I believe we are on the right track there now.

>
> > You could take
> > that position, that pushing for more inspections does not require trust
in
> > Saddam, but I think this is a very nuanced point and not one most
people,
> > other than you, might take.
>
> To the contrary I think that nearly everyone pushing for continued
> inspections was taking that position.

I don't think a lot of people thought it through that much. These are the
same people who keep caterwalling about Halliburton.

>
> >
> > The reality is that Saddam did everything but cooperate with inspectors
and
> > the UN in general.
>
> Your basis for saying this is what, exactly? You're not saying that
> your _suspicion_ based on past history is that Saddam did everything
> but cooperate with inspectors, which I agree is a position for which
> there is a rational basis. You are saying _definitely_ that Sadda
> Hussein did everything but cooperate with inspectors andthe UN in
> general, right?
>
> I assume that 'in general' is part of 'UN in general" and not meaning
> a lack of cooperation in general.
>
> My basis for saying that he did cooperate with inspectors and the UN
> in general in late 2002 and early 2003 is that is exactly what the
> inspectors and UN said. I do seem to recall Bush saying that he did
> not. Hmm...

Maybe he did at the time, but of course you know that was part of his
pattern of keeping the UN on his dog leash. Piss them off for awhile, kick
out inspectors, then cave in to threats for awhile and start the cycle over
again. Why do you think there were 17 resolutions against him? A big part
of my saying for a fact that Saddam did not cooperate is how he directed his
generals to circumvent the inspections. Powell provided this evidence. If
it was false information, then I would withdraw the comment. However, when
I say Saddam didn't comply, it is based on 12 years of being difficult.
Someone said that it is very clear when a country cooperates with
inspectors. Libya cooperated and it is like night and day compared to what
was going on in Iraq all those years.

Do you really doubt that Saddam definitely did not cooperate with the UN?
I'm not talking about for 6 months, either.

>
> > Leaving Saddam in power would amount to trusting that he
> > no longer help train and pay reward for terrorists, continue to develop
WMDs
> > and so on. You just can't prevent him from doing all the bad stuff that
he
> > wanted to do.
>
> No, it would amount to deciding that the expected consequences of
> invading Iraq were worse than the expected consequences of the
> alternatives.

Again I think you put too much faith in the UN inspection program. This is
not intended as an insult, it is my honest opinion.

>
> Indeed, this leads us to another bushlie. Kerry never said the
> world was safer with Saddam Hussein in power. (Although arguably
> that was literally true.) He said that we are les safe now (here I
> paraphrase but feel free to find an axact quote) than befor the
> invasion. But Bush says that Kerry says the world woudl be safer
> with Saddam Hussein in power.

That is an incredible level of hair splitting. I don't think there is any
practical difference, and to call this malicious (below) is just kind of
weird. We could parse this thing back and forth but I don't think it is
worth the effort. If you consider this lying then you are missing a whole
lot of things politicians do and say that is much worse. I don't think this
even registers on the radar screen.

>
> It is a deliberate, maliciousl misrepresentation of what Kerry's
> position which IIUC, is that the destabilization of Iraq has made
> the world a more dangerous place.

...hence we would be safer with Saddam in power?

>
> > Bush said that people who want to leave Saddam in power are
> > relying on a madman to keep his word. The fact that some of those "anti
> > war" people don't realize that they are, in effect, going to have to
trust
> > Saddam at some point doesn't make his statement false.
> >
> > But let's say you disagree with everything I just said, which I'm pretty
> > sure is the case. This is a far cry from a lie.
>
> I agree that what you have written is more on par with a mistake than
> it is with a lie. If honest you are simply mistaken in your belief as
> to what others are thinking and the implications thereof.
>
> I also mistrust people who claim to have insights into the inner
> workings of the minds (implied by "those... people don't realize")
> of the people with whom they disagree. I certainly do not believe
> that your claim to having that kind of insight is factually correct.
> There are logical alternatives to your conclusion and you present
> no logical reason to prefer your 'psychoanalysis' instead.

There are a lot of people who don't have logical reasons for their beliefs.
They rely on political spin for their facts, and I think more people than
not (who are against the war) fall into that camp. I realize that there are
those who really know the facts and still disagree with the Bush policy. I
don't have a problem with that. Everybody has an opinion and that's what
elections are for.

>
> What you claim as 'fact' is your own psychobabble. IN fact, we
> realize that we had to remain vigilant and rely on detererance
> because Sadadm Hussein could not be trusted.
>
I think you give more credit than a lot of your collaborators deserve. You
realize how many people go to see a Michael Moore movie and actually think
it is true?

> > It is his position (imo)
> > that people who want to leave the man in power are, in effect, trusting
that
> > he do the right thing whether they realize it or not. That just isn't a
> > lie. It is an opinion. Isn't it pretty plain and simple to see that it
is
> > his opinion? I mean, did Bush ever profess to have proof that everybody
on
> > Earth who opposed invasion trusted the man?
>
> Your addition of the caveat 'in effect' is a key element in convering
> the literal misrepresentation of an opposing viewpoint to an opinion
> of the consequences of that opposing viewpoint. It is less dishonest
> than what Bush actually said.
>
Maybe it's the difference between a plain speaking guy like Bush and a
wishy-washy guy like Kerry whose favorite word is "but."

> In fact, anyone who trusted Sadam Hussein would argue against
> inspections, arguing that they were unecessary.

I think we've been over that enough above.

>
> >
> > Kerry says, "It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."
> > Well, a lot of people thing it was the right war in the right place at
the
> > right time. Does that make Kerry a liar?
>
> Not apropos. Your example is that of Kerry expressing his own
> opinion
> about HIS own thoughts. That is not at all analogous to Bush
> attributing
> an opinion to others who had never expressed nor implied that opinion.
>
> Here's an appropriate example:
>
> Suppose Kerry were to say "Bush's idea of a health care plan is to
> pray you don't get sick." That would be a lie (I hope!) and it
> would be the same sort of lie as Bush said.

Isn't it reasonable to say that Bush is expressing his opinion (even if he
is wrong) when he says something like "People who want to wait for more
inspections and containment are trusting that Saddam will cooperate."

>
> > I think it does ONLY if Kerry
> > really, truly believes it was the right thing to do but is just saying
that
> > to get elected. There's no reason to think Bush believed anything other
> > than what he was saying about defeating Saddam.
> >
> > I just don't see a lie on this one, and neither did Dan Rather.
>
> I do not recall Dan Rather addressing the issue at all, but
> then again I cannot recall the last time I heard Dan Rather say
> anything (as opposed to hearing ABOUT Dan Rather saying things.)

That's kind of the point. Rather was so desperate to unseat this president
that he relied on forged documents about something inconsequential from 30
years ago. Don't you think he would have jumped on present day lies to make
his point if he could? That was kind of the point of my wise-cracking
title.

>
> I see it as a lie and as precisely the sort of lie that is
> commoplace on the part of politicians. That it is so commonplace
> does not make it less of a lie.
>
>
> > >
> > > The second example of Bush lying was an instance in which he claimed
> > > to have previously made a statement that he had not. The statement
> > > in question was in fact a paraphrasal of a statement frequently made
> > > by Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. Had Bush said "I always believed
> > > that ...." then one could possibly argue that he had secretly always
> > > agreed with the Gore statement, even though it had never passed his
lips
> > > in public. But that is not what he said. What he said was "I
always
> > > said that...' when in fact he NEVER said it. That's a lie.
> >
> > Like I said before, I'm not so quick to believe one reporter's review
>
> In this case I can see why you don't care to take the time to check
> it out. As I noted at the time, it is trivial.

OK, whether it is true or not, it is inconsequential, but it's not just a
matter of taking the time to check it out. That's not really the point.
The point is that this is one reporter making a claim. There's a thing
called peer review in scientific journals. Experiments also have to be
repeatable by different labs before something is accepted. I don't have the
resources nor interest to try and find everything the president said on and
off the record in the 2000 campaign. My only point is that you can't
believe everything you read when it hasn't been independently checked.

>
> > everything that was said during an entire political campaign.
> > if Bush was taken out of context which happens so frequently. Did Bush
say
> > that he said that during campaign speeches? I'll give you one and say
that
> > maybe Bush did lie about this. The jury is open and certainly not
proven.
> > You don't take one reporter's word on anything. Dan Rather taught that
> > lesson well.
>
> I say it is proven to those who have taken the time to examine
> the question rather than trusting a single source.

Which is one person.

> The only
> jurors who are out are those who haven't heard the evidence.
>
> >
> > >
> > > Your defense of Bush, as I recall, was an obfuscating paragraph
> > > about deficits. Not very honest on your part, eh?
> >
> > Don't remember it. Maybe someone else said that like the other stuff
you
> > attributed to me.
>
>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=H146d.8662%24NS1.4285437%40news4.srv.h
cvlny.cv.net&output=gplain>
>

I see now. I didn't remember it partly because you called it obfuscating.
It thought was about as clear and simple as you can get.

>
> >
> > >
> > > In another thread I referred you to an instance in which Bush claimed
> > > that the IAEA stated a conclusion in a report which the IAEA had
> > > not. You never addressed that false attribution on Bush's part.
> > > Maybe you do not consider a false statement about what an organization
> > > has reported to be lying, I do.
> >
> > I know nothing about it. My instinct again is that there is more to the
> > story. You don't seem to understand that people can say things that are
not
> > true, yet not be lying. He has a staff, he has intelligence reports and
on
> > and on. Do you consider yourself to be lying everytime you say
something
> > that turns out not to be true?
>
> I think that if you hire a staff that writes lies into your speeches
> you are responsible.
>
> It is also fine with me that you do not accept this without having
> checked it out for yourself.
>
> It is also fine with me if you do not check it out for yourself.
>
> It is not fine with me if you say you haven't seen proof to support
> the accusation that Bush lied when the obvious reason that you have
> not is that you have declined to look at the evidence provided.
>

We are really going around in circles on this issue now and you are
continuing to miss the point. It isn't a matter of me not looking into the
evidence. According to you, Bush claims a report says something that it
doesn't say. Your evidence of lying is that he must know better? Now
where's your proof that the reason for this discrepancy is a lie? Don't you
think, if you didn't jump to conclusions, that there might be a variety of
reasons that the stories are different? There are two sides to every story
and you might be surprised to find out that things aren't quite what you
thought after you hear the other side.

The only thing that can happen from here if I looked at the details of this
"lie" is that I'll find subtleties that will show how it isn't quite as
clear as you make it out to be. You have shown a propensity to call people
liars at the drop of a hat. In the paragraph above, I'm giving you the
assumption that there is a flat out, clear contradiction, and I STILL don't
see any proof of a lie. By the way, it is not easy to prove somebody is
lying. You can make assumptions, but you'll have a hard time proving it.
That doesn't stop some people from crying bloody murder though.

My guess is that whatever issue you think Bush lied about is a complicated
one and there are opportunities throughout the report to pick and choose
what you want to emphasize.


> > >
> > > Of course I already covered this ground in the earlier article you
> > > didn't bother to review befor writing your reply.
> >
> > You apparently didn't understand anything I said earlier about lying.
You
> > aren't showing me any proof of lying. I'll take you at your word (for
the
> > sake of argument) that he said things that were not backed up by the
> > reports. Now prove to me he was lying. You can't, and Dan Rather
can't.
> > If you tried to sue the President for lying, what would your evidence
be?
>
> Such a suit would be frivolous. Lying is not a tort. No one can
> prove
> anything to you because you will not consider the evidence.

That's a dodge. My understanding in court is that one can concede an
argument. That means that whatever the other side just said I'm not going
to contest and we'll take it as fact. Now that takes the evidence out of it
for the sake of my point. I'm simply asking you to provide the reasons or
evidence that prove it is a lie.

>
> > Give me a secret Oval Office tape recording where Bush says, "Now we're
> > gonna take this here IAEA report as evidence and throw in a few of our
own
> > conclusions...nobody, not even Dan Rather, is going to notice."
>
> At this point I think that if I gave you just such a tape you would
> decline to listen to it and continue to say that you had not seen
> proof that Bush lied. For that matter, after listening to it you
> might well still continue to say that you had not seen proof that
> Bush lied because hearing is not seeing.

No, you are giving me things like articles from one reporter and taking them
as gospel. I keep telling you that even if I concede your points that he
contradicted a report, you still haven't proven that there is a lie. There
can be numerous reasons for a discrepancy.

>
> >
> > >
> > > > I look at it another way. Dan Rather,
> > > > by any objective standard, leans considerably to the left. This had
to
> > be a
> > > > factor in his problems with the Bush TANG debacle. Now, don't you
think
> > if
> > > > there were any evidence that the President of the US LIED about
> > intelligence
> > > > or anything else to justify going to war that this would be big
news?
> > >
> > > I look at your introduction of Dan Rather into this, er, discussion
> > > to be obfuscation. If you want to discuss examples I gave of Bush
> > > lying then why not discuss examples I gave of Bush lying?
> >
> > The fact that you say Rather is obfuscation shows me that you are more
> > interested in defending your turf than you are in actually understanding
> > what I am saying. I'm really not trying to attack you, I'm just trying
to
> > get you to realize that you have already convicted Bush of being a liar,
and
> > are using these different examples of what appears, at worst, to be
> > intelligence or communication errors, or errors in the media reports you
are
> > reading (ie, out of context reporting). You've got it backwards. Go
find
> > some real lies and then you can think poorly of his character.
> >
>
> Damn, I hate to think of what you'd say about me if you WERE attacking
> me.

All I've said is that you don't seem to be listening to what I'm saying.
It's not all about what the guy said, it's about proving it was a lie. It
is like people going around accusing people of treason. There is a very
high threshold of proof for accusastions of treason, and the Founders made
it this way on purpose.

>
> It is also amuzing that you claim "Dan Rather, by any objective
> standard,
> eans considerably to the left." In fact there is no objective
> standard
> for determining is anyone is left or right leaning. Left and Right,
> in the political context, are entirely subjective concepts.
>

Objective in the sense that you can measure how many positive and negative
stories are done on one candidate over another, for example. The NY Times
is famous for putting democrat supporting stories on the front page, while
usually burying the same for republicans. Some of these measures are pretty
indisputable. That's what I mean by objective. Some of these things CAN be
measured. Oh, that and Rather is on tape making disparaging statements
against Bush. I'm trying to remember exactly what that was but it escapes
me at the moment.


> I'll agree that sometimes a politician misquotes someone by accident
> or misattributes a conclusion to a source that never stated that
> conclusion by accident. But when that occurs with the frequently,
> in prepared remarks, and the wrong information is always pointing
> the same way it is naive to suppose mere error is at play.

I don't think mere error is necessarily the best explanation.

>
>
> >
> > >
> > > If I say that the Warren Comission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald
> > > acted in concert with others I would be lying becuase that is NOT
> > > what the Warren Comission said. Similarly, when Bush claimed that
> > > the IAEA or UNMOVIC reported something they did not report, Bush lied
> > > regardless of whether or not the report itself was true.
> >
> > Of course, and how stupid would Bush have to be to stand in front of
> > reporters at a press conference and have to defend the indefensible?
>
> Not stupid at all. The people who won't catch the lie, won't believe
> others who say they caught it, won't check it out for themselves, or
> don't care in the first place, IOW people like you, are legion. I
> don't think he or any politician gives a damn about being caught
> lying so long as those who catch him either won't vote against him
> in sufficient numbers to matter.
>
> I don't claim he is more dishonest than other politicians, only
> that he is no less dishonest than other politicians.

Then why aren't you going around giving Kerry a hard time for being a liar?
As for your point above, that is what the press is for. Nobody has caught
Bush in a lie. It just isn't a story because it can't be proven.

>
> > I
> > don't believe it was that simple, sorry. Unlike you, I come from the
> > standpoint of giving him the benefit of the doubt. The whole point
about
> > Dan Rather is a metaphor for the mainstream media at large. If there
were
> > clear lies, LIES, NOT OPINIONS, don't you think we'd be having nightly
> > newscasts about how it is now "DAY 43" in the president's refusal to
answer
> > charges of lying to the American people? The fact that they had to go
back
> > to some stupid forged documents (which they STILL do not admit were
forged)
> > about an inconsequential subject proves to me that there's nothing to
this
> > lying stuff.
>
> Do you really think that the press goes so far as to fabricate a
> exact quote from Bush? Do you think that the White House publishes
> false transcripts of his speeches, altered to make it appear that
> he lied? Do you think that the IAEA reports posted online by the UN
> are fabrications that have been edited after
> the fact to make it look like Bush lied?
>

In general, no, but it is funny you should ask. In fact I have seen some of
this with the UN. Just go look into the UN's Third Assessment for Climate
Change...global warming stuff. The Summary for Policymakers (or something
to that effect) which is a sort of cover page summary of the large volume of
the report, contradicts and distorts what is in the report. Scientists were
told to change some of their findings to match the summary used to convince
politicians to take action. Of course it is a very complicated issue but
the political crap that goes on in that field is astounding.

> *I* showed you one example of how a surce you were using had
> fabricated
> a story. In doing so you could have seen how easy it is to catch.
>
> ...
> > >
> > > However, the observation that all of the falsifieable statements
> > > made by the Bush/Blair administration IRT Iraqi WMDs have been
> > > falsified does little to inspire confidence in their honesty,
> > > doesn't it?
> >
> > Not really.
>
> How about an example instead of a vague allusion?

Hopefully after this thread you are beginning to see my point, which makes
the above comment moot.

>
> >You have just indicted every politician in every nation for the
> > last decade, all of whom were convinced that Saddam had lots of bad
stuff.
>
> Up until when? That is the seminal issue that you keep ignoring.
> My objection is not to holding that opinion in the absence of evidence
> to the contrary. My objection is to holding that opinion in the
> presence of evidence to the conttrary to the extent that non-evidence
> can be evidence. But that is a consequence of logic. Which brings us
> to another point about how transparently dishonest Bush was on the
> Iraq disarmament issue.

How about providing me a list of the major countries that were against the
invasion? I think it is a very interesting list and not one I would like to
be associated with. Saddam's supposed cooperation over a year doesn't do
anything for me in light of the history which we've already covered.

>
> Bush's demand that Saddam Hussein prove that he had no WMDs could
> never be proven. If he turned over 100 tones each of VX, Sarin,
> Mustard,
> anthrax etc etc to UNMVOC Bush could always claim it was just the tip
> of the iceberg.
>
> And supposing, as the evidence indicate, that Iraq had been unable to
> manufacuture new WMDs since befor 1991, or had unilaterally destroyed
> them in the period between 1998 and 2003. Then Iraq could not even
> approach that standard of proof.
>
> The use of the word 'innocent' is hardly appropriate to Iraq but
> that objection aside Bush's demand was a trick bag. He required
> proof of innocence that could not be met by an innocent party.

Your blame is misguided. Saddam had plenty of opportunity to reconcile the
missing WMDs and show real support for the process. He didn't.

>
> > I'm perfectly content in saying this was a non-partisan screw up, even
> > though it hasn't been proven that he weapons weren't moved out of
country,
> > or aren't still there.
>
> It is never significant that a nonfalsifiable hypothesis has not
> been falsified.

Say whatever you want, but neither side can say definitively whether he had
them or not for sure. If there never were any remaining WMDs after 91 (do
you really believe this???) the blame for the invasion lies with Saddam, not
Bush.

>
> Supposing that Iraqi WMDs turn up outside of Iraq, as they may have
> in Jordan. That just proves my point above about how the invasion
> led to proliferation and loss of control. It proves Kerry's point
> too.

I forget whether your position was that there were no more WMDs or whether
they had been moved. Are you saying that there were no weapons but if there
were it was a mistake to go in because they could be moved?

>
> Odd, I generally consider 'asshole' to be an insult. But if you do
> not,
> that's OK. In the future I'll feel free to apply the term to you,
> confident that you'll not be offended.

Oh, gee, let's just leave out why I called you that. I never did hear an
apology.

>
> >
> > > > I think this is an
> > > > artifact of your aim to call the President a liar at all costs.
> > >
> > > I think you're either one of the laziest people to ever post on
> > > the internet or patently dishonest. You have never once in this
> > > discussion shown any dilligence yourself, you just jump straight
> > > to accusations against me.
> >
> > The only thing I've accused you of is calling the president a liar,
which
> > you eventually proved me right on, and misunderstanding what proof of a
lie
> > constitues. I'm sorry if you somehow see that as an attack.
>
> 'your aim to call the President a liar at all costs.' accuses me of
> a more than calling the president a liar. It is a de facto accusation
> that I chose the conclusion and then looked ofr evidence, rather than
> vice-versa.

I think that is a possibility, though you might not realize you are doing
that. It is a pretty easy thing to do. It seems that you felt jilted when
the president said that people who oppose the attack are willing to trust
that Saddam will do the right thing. You made such a big deal about this
that it seems it really pissed you off personally because that clearly was
not your position. I'm just guessing of course, but you wouldn't be the
first anti-Bush person to act more on emotion than reason.

>
> >
> > >
> > > Returning to the very first example I gave, that of Bush saying that
> > > those who opposed the invasion of Iraq thought Saddam Hussein could
> > > be trusted, have you yet tried to ascertain if he said that or not?
> >
> > Again, I didn't say that, and if I did say anything remotely like that
it
> > was in a completely different context. I clearly remember him saying
that,
> > but I recall the word "madman" in there as well.
>
> Huh? I _never_ claimed that _you_ said that, I claimed that bush said
> that.

No kidding! I already said that I know he said that. Why are you bringing
that up again? I wasn't clear in the paragraph above but you know what I
was getting at. You asked whether I looked into whether or not he said
that. I never disputed it.

>
> >
> > Try not to take things so personally. Maybe your defensiveness keeps
you
> > from understanding my side of the discussion. I completely understand
> > yours, but it is clear to me that you have indicted the man based on a
> > misunderstanding of his motives.
> >
>
> No, I recognize that he tells the same sorts of lies as do all
> politicans. I simply call a spade a spade, at least unless I'm
> playing euchre.
>
> Whenever a politician prefaces a statement with "My oppenent says"
> it is likelythat a lie is about to follow and only slightly less
> likely if the preface is "I never said" or "I always said".
>
> I do not think we should relax the standard for what we call the
> truth simply because politicians find lies to be useful.
>

You know, let's just kill this thread. Let's just agree that politicians in
general tend to take advantage of the electorate when it suits their needs.
Make you final comments if you want. I'll just point out quickly where you
are wrong and then I'm really done with it. ;) (That was a joke, OK?)

dwhite

can't let this one go...

"The business of ruining the American economy?" You mean the effects of an
overheated economy that just happened to take a "time-out" that began a few
years before the actual effects like they always do, not unlike rebound that
began in the Bush Sr. era but didn't show until Clinton was seated? Or do
you mean no-brain jobs moving overseas because taxes and unions make it
cheaper to do the work elsewhere?

"Of undermining the military?" Never heard that as an accusation towards a
"hawk". Only explanation I can think of is that he has one hand tied behind
his back trying to appease the snakes in western Europe while at the same
time trying to do what has to be done.

"Of continuing to increase the US isolation in international democracy?"
Guess you're talking about Iraq...thought GWB pretty much cleared that up a
few days ago...we are not going it alone. The noticably absent ones are the
ones "sleeping with the dog" for money and/or oil. If you aspire to the
German or French way of doing things (socialist), then suggest you move to
Germany or France.

"Or decreasing your rights as a private citizen?" Howard is moving to
satellite so take a breath. Our other rights are perhaps compromised
somewhat in the interest of security but I haven't encountered too many
people that are mad about a few more minutes in the airport. BTW I
travelled to Germany too many times to recall and they always did the full
body search in the airport (read the above and maybe pick France...travelled
alot there also and they didn't seem to care).


"Andrew Barss" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Leon <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> : "Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> : news:[email protected]...
> :>
> :> The real shame is that Bush supporters take every word he speaks as
> :> gospel and don't actually think for themselves.
>
> : Kerry just wants to be president and he is riding this pony for all it
> is
> : worth. He will be gone soon enough and then Bush can get back to
> business.
>
>
> That would be, what? The business of ruining the American economy?
> Of undermining the military? Of continuing to increase the US isolation
> in international democracy? Or decreasing your rights as a private
> citizen?
>
> Yeah, that will be really great.
>
>
> -- Andy Barss
>

"Leon" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >
> > The real shame is that Bush supporters take every word he speaks as
> > gospel and don't actually think for themselves.
>
> Kerry just wants to be president and he is riding this pony for all it is
> worth. He will be gone soon enough and then Bush can get back to
business.
>

> Democrats who take Kerrys' words as gospel are really DIMocrats
who never think for themselves. This makes up about half of the party.
The other half is aware of all the lies, deciet, and outright unlawful
crap and even assist with it with great joy. This half is more accurately
known as DemoCROOKS. Both of them continuously accuse the
Republicans of the very things that they do constantly.
>

"Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
>
> > > _The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's
> > > Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)_
> > >
> > > http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
> > >
> > > Please note the date OCTOBER 2002. That is FIVE months before the
> > > invasion.
> > >
> > > Based in part on the information in that report Bush went to the UN
> > > and
> > > together the US and the UN demanded a return of the inspectors to
> > > Iraq.
> > >
> > > Here are the results of that inspection process as of the eve of the
> > > invasion:
> > >
> > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4122113/
> >
> > First of all anyone who puts in his report a quote from Cheney saying
"We
> > will not hesitate to discredit you" as some sort of insinuation that the
> > admin was out to lie about the inspections is being reckless.
>
> Even Cheney is capable of greater sublety than a simple F--- You.
>
> > ...
> > >
> > > http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2004/inspectionsiraq20040202.html
> > >
> > > ... Up to that point and Iraq was cooperating with the
> > > weapons inspectors.
> >
> > I don't believe it. Iraq was not cooperating with anybody to any real
level
> > of acceptability.
>
> You keep saying that yet it is contradicted by the clear unambiguous
> statements of all the people he was supposed to be cooperating with.
>
> > Bush never called Iraq an imminent threat -- those are
> > words put in his mouth by others. You say he had no nuclear program?
When
> > you have your top nuclear scientist bury nuclear weapons plans in his
back
> > yard under penalty of death I consider that part of a nuclear program.
Let
> > the UN in to look around some and when they leave start everything back
up
> > again.
> >
>
> Buried parts are not being used for anyting. That is not a program.
> Where did that pain of death business come from?

From the guy who was hiding it. He has a book out about it called The Bomb
in My Garden.

>
> The UN was never going to leave. The inspections were open-ended.
> That's another point that is lost on people who don't pay attention.
> You seem to think that the IAEA was never going to visit Iraq again.

I'm not rehashing this again.

>
> > >
> > > It was perfectly reasonable to accept the October 2002 report as
> > > the best assessment of the situation in October 2002. But, and
> > > cannot be emphasized enough, when better data became available from
> > > people on the ground in Iraq what excuse did Bush have for ignoring
> > > it? What excuse did you have? As far as I can tell, NONE.
> >
> > You're acting like Saddam had no options to change his game plan in 5
months
> > before he allowed inspectors back in.
>
> Huh?

Let's say your intelligence shows a bomb is in Saddam's palace. Five months
later Saddam lets inspectors in and the bomb is gone. Is the original intel
bad or did Saddam just move the bomb in those five months? I don't know one
way or the other, but AGAIN that is the point. When you have a dictator who
is not cooperating with you, it is the wrong policy to depend on UN
inspections for the forseeable future where we all know that sanctions had
been weakened over the years, not to mention the corruption. You can't stop
a bad guy from doing bad things like supporting suicide bombers, training
terrorists and on and on. We don't have to live like that post 9/11. Iraq
had the 12 year track record and was a monster to boot. I'd do it all over
again in a heartbeat, but of course with hindsight there are things they
could have done better...but that's war.

>
> > He did kick them out originally.
>
> Nonsense. They wisely left when Clinton notified them of impending
> military action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein did not let them back
> in until 2002, but it is just plain dishonest to say he kicked them
> out.

Ya know, that's what I've heard and if it is wrong then fine, but a 10
second google finds this from Salon, hardly right wing:
http://www.salon.com/politics/letters/2002/11/15/inspectors/

This sounds like it is much closer to the truth. Do you agree with this
article? If so then how can you go around giving the impression that Uncle
Saddam was cooperating until the big bad US made them run away?

>
> Note I'm not defending Saddam Hussein or criticizing BJC.
> I'm defending truth and criticizing those who distort it.

See above.

> > >
> > > I do not understand why it is so hard for you to grasp the concept
> > > that the October 2002 report was not the final word on the issue.
> >
> > I'm fine with that.
> >
>
> You're fine with standing by the October 2002 report in the face of
> better subsequent information?

You are putting words in my mouth. I'm fine with the fact that better
evidence can come along as time passes and you have to adjust your
conclusions accordingly.

>
> >
> >
> > snip yellowcake stuf [specifically the forged documents.]
> >
> > >
> > > Now, some British and American sources claim that there was other
> > > evidence independent of the forged documents. I have thwo things to
> > > day about that. One, the forged documents are STILL forged and US
> > > and UK submitted them to the IAEA as if they were genuine. Two, to
> > > accept that other independent evidence we have to accept the word
> > > of the same people who foisted the forged documents on us.
> > >
> > > Fool us once, shame on him, and we won't be fooled again.
> >
> > Yes, it's kind of like believing the UN is an unbiased entity capable of
> > providing good information on Iraq while pilfering billions from Iraq at
the
> > same time. You give more credibility to the UN than you do to our own
> > government.
>
> Our own government was caught foisting forged documents on the UN
> Not vice versa.

That's the whole issue of our debate in a nutshell. I believe our own
government is looking out for our interests more than the UN, and you seem
to believe that our government is lying to its people while the UN is this
bastion of truth when the evidence of UN corruption points to the opposite.

>
> > I do not. They have proven themselves corrupt time after time.
> >
>
> You've never presented any evidence of corruption of the IAEA or
> UNMOVIC.

There was some when it came to French inspectors but I do not remember what
year that was going on. I am pretty sure it was in the 90's when Ritter was
there. It isn't completely a matter of corruption of the inspectors, moreso
one of ineffectiveness in the long run against a regime that doesn't want to
cooperate.

>
> You made some vague references to a Global Warming report, I tried to
> find it using search terms suggested by what you wrote but to no
> avail.
> Aside from which, that's hardly a related topic.

I highly suggest you don't bother. The whole subject is a snakepit. It is
interesting, but you will find yourself spending hours reading stuff, and
then realize you could be doing a lot of better things. The report is here
but it is just the summary. The actual report is hundreds of pages long and
last I knew you couldn't get a copy online:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf

>
> Is there any evidence to support your claim in the Duelfer report?
> If so, what pages?

Not sure what you are referring to here.

>
> > >
> >
> > Uhh, that's exactly what Kerry did. It wasn't Bush's strategy, it was
Tommy
> > Franks'.
>
> Tommy Franks is not the troops. If Bush wants to blame it on Franks
> then he can go ahead and do that. Kerry made it clear that he blames
> Bush. Kerry named Bush as the man at fault and had nothing but
> praise for the US military.

Right or wrong, I believe Franks and his chain of command to be a member of
the troops. Kerry had "nothing but praise for the US military"... how
ironic. How 'bout you go ask those troops who they think supports them
more, Bush or Kerry? I don't care what anybody other than the troops think.
The reason we support them is so that they have a better morale and a better
chance at victory. Our opinions don't matter as much. Kerry, I assure you,
is not their man.

>
> The point is that when Kerry criticizes Bush that pucilineous wimp
> doesn't even have the balls to stand up and defend himself. Instead
> he claims Kerry was really criticizing the troops Kerry was praising.

Please.

> > My God Fred, if this stuff concerns you then I can only imagine how many
> > blood vessels you would have popped had you lived back during WW2.
There is
> > a war going on, ya know?
>
> Got any idea how many American GIs were prosecuted for violating the
> Laws of War in WWII? Our leaders back then were serious about moral
> responsibility and did not so easily abandon the rule of law.

But if you lived back then you'd be calling FDR a liar and war criminal.
>
> >
> > You want to compare Bush to communists?
>
> No. How bizarre that you would suggest doing so.

Not so bizarre if you realized you just made Bush and Putin out to be
buddies. Didn't you know Putin wasa KGB official and most of his
adminstration was also? These were communists?.
>
> >
> > The people who believe Bush was lying about everything in Iraq have yet
to
> > present a reasonable explanation as to WHY Bush went into Iraq even
though
> > he KNEW they posed no threat. Why did he do it?
>
> In an earlier thread I answerred that.

What's the answer in say 3 lines or less. Just an overview snapshot. It's
been so long I don't remember.

>You yourself have argued
> that WMDs were not the only nor (I think) the best reason for the
> invasion while still arguing that the invasion was justified. So
> why do you suppose Bush could not be in agreement with you on
> that point?
>
WMD's were not the only reason we went in, but in the face of the evidence
(yes I know you dispute that evidence) the WMD probably seemed like the best
way to argue the case for invasion.

dwhite

"Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> writes:
> >Sorry Fred, I lost your post from about 2 days ago re. where Bush lied
and
> >it's just not worth it to google it back up anyway. So, I'm responding
> >here, and then I'm pretty much done with the subject.
> >
> >I asked for a simple instance of proof where Bush lied, and you wrote a
>
> Simple. Every time he says that Kerry flip-flopped on Iraq, he lies.
>
> The real shame is that Bush supporters take every word he speaks as
> gospel and don't actually think for themselves.

Not true. Are you actually denying that Kerry didn't change his position on
Iraq because of Howard Dean's success? Have you seen the 11 minute video on
the internet that documents these flip flops? Kerry is too wishy-washy on
the issue of fighting terrorism IMO. Worse yet, he changes his position to
whatever it needs to be to get him elected president. No character...he's
just another Al Gore who did the same thing with the first gulf war.

dwhite

crossposting eliminated

"Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> >
> >
> > http://www.cia.gov/nic/articles_iraq_wmd.htm
> >
> > It is an interesting read. One of the important points is:
> > "Let me be clear: The NIE judged with high confidence that Iraq had
chemical
> > and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the
150
> > km limit imposed by the UN Security Council, and with moderate
confidence
> > that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons. These judgments were essentially
the
> > same conclusions reached by the United Nations and by a wide array of
> > intelligence services-friendly and unfriendly alike. The only government
in
> > the world that claimed that Iraq was not working on, and did not have,
> > biological and chemical weapons or prohibited missile systems was in
> > Baghdad. Moreover, in those cases where US intelligence agencies
disagreed,
> > particularly regarding whether Iraq was reconstituting a uranium
enrichment
> > effort for its nuclear weapons program, the alternative views were
spelled
> > out in detail. Despite all of this, ten myths have been confused with
facts
> > in the current media frenzy. A hard look at the facts of the NIE should
> > dispel some popular myths making the media circuit. [end]
>
> A more important point is that the author of that editorial is
> referring
> to _The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's
> Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)_
>
> http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
>
> Please note the date OCTOBER 2002. That is FIVE months before the
> invasion.
>
> Based in part on the information in that report Bush went to the UN
> and
> together the US and the UN demanded a return of the inspectors to
> Iraq.
>
> Here are the results of that inspection process as of the eve of the
> invasion:
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4122113/

First of all anyone who puts in his report a quote from Cheney saying "We
will not hesitate to discredit you" as some sort of insinuation that the
admin was out to lie about the inspections is being reckless. I don't
dispute everything the article says, I just don't think it is the last word
and even the author wasn't against force. He says "The lesson here is not
that force should never have been used. David Kay's picture of Iraq-an
irrational, dysfunctional kleptocracy with a nasty history of WMD-was a
danger and would have required action at some point."
>
> http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2004/inspectionsiraq20040202.html
>
> Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program, no evidence of stockpiles
> of chemical or biological weapons were found. No manufacturing
> facilities
> were found. Up to that point and Iraq was cooperating with the
> weapons inspectors.

I don't believe it. Iraq was not cooperating with anybody to any real level
of acceptability. Bush never called Iraq an imminent threat -- those are
words put in his mouth by others. You say he had no nuclear program? When
you have your top nuclear scientist bury nuclear weapons plans in his back
yard under penalty of death I consider that part of a nuclear program. Let
the UN in to look around some and when they leave start everything back up
again.

> The missles that were found by UNMOVIC to exceed
> the permitted
> range did so only marginally in a zero-payload test. Whether that was
> a substative violation or not may be debated, but what is not
> debatable
> is that the missle were declared and made available to UNMOVIC for
> inspection.
>
> It was perfectly reasonable to accept the October 2002 report as
> the best assessment of the situation in October 2002. But, and
> cannot be emphasized enough, when better data became available from
> people on the ground in Iraq what excuse did Bush have for ignoring
> it? What excuse did you have? As far as I can tell, NONE.

You're acting like Saddam had no options to change his game plan in 5 months
before he allowed inspectors back in. He did kick them out originally.

>
> I do not understand why it is so hard for you to grasp the concept
> that the October 2002 report was not the final word on the issue.

I'm fine with that.

>
> Besides, here is what teh uS Senate concluded about it:
>
> http://msnbc.msn.com/ID/5403731
>
> Conclusion 1. Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence
> Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE),
> Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction,
> either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying
> intelligence reporting.

That was interesting and I had not read it. It shows up a lot of problems
with the intelligence but then we already knew some things were wrong. Lay
a lot of the blame on Saddam. He is the one who caused all of the
confusion, not us. This report is a mixed bad, too, and of course this
isn't the last word, either.

That same report said, "The Committee found no evidence that the IC's
mischaracterization or exaggeration of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the result of political pressure."


snip yellowcake stuff

>
> Now, some British and American sources claim that there was other
> evidence independent of the forged documents. I have thwo things to
> day about that. One, the forged documents are STILL forged and US
> and UK submitted them to the IAEA as if they were genuine. Two, to
> accept that other independent evidence we have to accept the word
> of the same people who foisted the forged documents on us.
>
> Fool us once, shame on him, and we won't be fooled again.

Yes, it's kind of like believing the UN is an unbiased entity capable of
providing good information on Iraq while pilfering billions from Iraq at the
same time. You give more credibility to the UN than you do to our own
government. I do not. They have proven themselves corrupt time after time.

>
> Just today (now yesterday) I caught bush in yet another bald-faced
> lie.

But then again we know you have an incredibly low threshhold for what
constitutes a lie.

>
> Kerry has been repeating his criticism that when bin Laden was
> cornered in Tora Bora he got away because Bush 'outsourced' the
> job to warlords who only a week before had been fighting for the other
> side instead of using the best trained, best equipped and dedicated
> troops in the world, American troops eager to avenge the attacks of
> Sept 11.
>
> Bush's response was to acccuse Kerry of criticising the US military
> for failing to capture Bin Laden in Tora Bora.
>
> That's Bush showing his ass, er character for you.

Uhh, that's exactly what Kerry did. It wasn't Bush's strategy, it was Tommy
Franks'. The president makes the ultimate decision for war but he isn't the
strategist for every battle. So, yes, Kerry as is his custom, was
criticising the military. The other point that you have missed is that
Franks himself said that Kerry's comments show that he has absolutely no
idea of the real facts.

snip stuff on detainees

>
> And so it goes. Is it any wonder that Vladimir Putin, the current
> dictator of Russia, has endorsed the reelection of George W Bush?
> Clinton, Carter, even Reagan took an active interest in protecting
> the civil rights of the Russian people. Putin doesn't have
> that problem with Bush.
>
> Character my ass.
>

My God Fred, if this stuff concerns you then I can only imagine how many
blood vessels you would have popped had you lived back during WW2. There is
a war going on, ya know?

You want to compare Bush to communists? Let's compare Kerry to Saddam.
Both men said a lot of things that they refused to back up. Kerry said he
was a war hero yet won't release his records by signing F180. Saddam said
he was a peaceful benefactor yet continued to protect and hide and
intimidate and play the shell game. I don't trust either of 'em.

My last word on this is that Iraq was a dangerous place with terrorist
organizations running through it, ruled by a guy who was biding his time
before he could reconstitute his programs. I believe this 100% and so does
his top nuclear scientist. We were wasting a lot of time and energy trying
to keep him in a bottle, and were operating on the pre 9/11 mentality. The
war on terror is bigger than Afganistan and Iraq, and it will be waging for
a lot more years if we are lucky enough to have leadership that takes this
stuff seriously. We now have a foot hold in the middle east where democracy
has a chance to spread.

The people who believe Bush was lying about everything in Iraq have yet to
present a reasonable explanation as to WHY Bush went into Iraq even though
he KNEW they posed no threat. Why did he do it? What is the motivation?
Please don't put any of the words "Bush's daddy," "Saudis," or "Halliburton"
in your reply.

dwhite

"Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...

> >
> > You know, let's just kill this thread. Let's just agree that
politicians in
> > general tend to take advantage of the electorate when it suits their
needs.
> > Make you final comments if you want. I'll just point out quickly where
you
> > are wrong and then I'm really done with it. ;) (That was a joke, OK?)
> >
>
> Why not just remove rec.woodworking from the distribution list?
>

From the what?

dwhite

Leon <[email protected]> wrote:

: "Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
: news:[email protected]...
:>
:> The real shame is that Bush supporters take every word he speaks as
:> gospel and don't actually think for themselves.

: Kerry just wants to be president and he is riding this pony for all it is
: worth. He will be gone soon enough and then Bush can get back to business.


That would be, what? The business of ruining the American economy?
Of undermining the military? Of continuing to increase the US isolation
in international democracy? Or decreasing your rights as a private
citizen?

Yeah, that will be really great.


-- Andy Barss

Andrew Barss wrote:

> Leon <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> : "Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> : news:[email protected]...
> :>
> :> The real shame is that Bush supporters take every word he speaks as
> :> gospel and don't actually think for themselves.
>
> : Kerry just wants to be president and he is riding this pony for all it
> : is
> : worth. He will be gone soon enough and then Bush can get back to
> : business.
>
>
> That would be, what? The business of ruining the American economy?
> Of undermining the military? Of continuing to increase the US isolation
> in international democracy? Or decreasing your rights as a private
> citizen?
>
> Yeah, that will be really great.

They're both idiots. Kerry may not ruin the economy, undermine the
military, increase the US isolation in "international democracy" (whatever
the Hell _that_ means) and decrease your rights as a private citizen in the
same manner as Bush, but I can't see how things are improved just because
he finds a different manner to go about it. Better the idiot we know than
the idiot we don't if the choice is between two idiots.
>
>
> -- Andy Barss

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> The real shame is that Bush supporters take every word he speaks as
> gospel and don't actually think for themselves.

Kerry just wants to be president and he is riding this pony for all it is
worth. He will be gone soon enough and then Bush can get back to business.

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Sorry Fred, I lost your post from about 2 days ago re. where Bush lied and
> it's just not worth it to google it back up anyway.

Well that is pretty much SOP for you isn't it? You just cannot be
bothered to look for factual information.

> So, I'm responding
> here, and then I'm pretty much done with the subject.

I'll respond you your personal attack in alt.flame, where it is
not Off-Topic and to what you have to say about Bush in
alt.politics.bush, where it is not Off-Topic.

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Sorry Fred, I lost your post from about 2 days ago re. where Bush lied and
> it's just not worth it to google it back up anyway.

I don't believe you are sorry at all. Not looking up my article
saves you the trouble of addressing the examples of Bush lying
that I actually presented and perhaps in your mind at least allows
you the latitude to attribute claimes ot myself that I did not post.

>
> I asked for a simple instance of proof where Bush lied, and you wrote a
> dissertation on everything but that.

I gave you two examples in this thread. One was the lie frequently
made by Bush, that those who opposed the invasion thought Saddam
Hussein could be trusted. You offered two defenses:

1) That you didn't remember Bush saying that.

2) Deliberate and malicious misrepresentation of another person's
point of view was not lying, it was the expression of an opinon.

I then went on to explain that it was my opinion that deliberate
misrepresentation of another person's point of view was lying.
ISTR you argued that misrepresentation is a synonym for lying.

The second example of Bush lying was an instance in which he claimed
to have previously made a statement that he had not. The statement
in question was in fact a paraphrasal of a statement frequently made
by Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. Had Bush said "I always believed
that ...." then one could possibly argue that he had secretly always
agreed with the Gore statement, even though it had never passed his lips
in public. But that is not what he said. What he said was "I always
said that...' when in fact he NEVER said it. That's a lie.

Your defense of Bush, as I recall, was an obfuscating paragraph
about deficits. Not very honest on your part, eh?

In another thread I referred you to an instance in which Bush claimed
that the IAEA stated a conclusion in a report which the IAEA had
not. You never addressed that false attribution on Bush's part.
Maybe you do not consider a false statement about what an organization
has reported to be lying, I do.

I also cited the false statement that Bush made about the Medusa
missle tubes. You ignored that.

I also cited a false statement Bush made about a report on quantities
of unacounted for growth media in January, 2003. You ignored that.

Of course I already covered this ground in the earlier article you
didn't bother to review befor writing your reply.

> I look at it another way. Dan Rather,
> by any objective standard, leans considerably to the left. This had to be a
> factor in his problems with the Bush TANG debacle. Now, don't you think if
> there were any evidence that the President of the US LIED about intelligence
> or anything else to justify going to war that this would be big news?

I look at your introduction of Dan Rather into this, er, discussion
to be obfuscation. If you want to discuss examples I gave of Bush
lying then why not discuss examples I gave of Bush lying?

>
> Which has more impact:
>
> "This is Dan Rather...stunning new information reveals that President Bush
> lied to the American people when he said such and such facility was a WMD
> facility when he in fact KNEW that it was nothing of the sort. We have the
> secret tapes to prove this deception."
>
> OR
>
> "This is Dan Rather...stunning new information reveals that President Bush
> did not take a required physical while on inactive duty in the 6th year in
> his ANG service thirty years ago."

More obfuscation. 'Impact' is not a relevant consideration. Truth
is.

Here I'll snip out much of your article dedicated to issues about,
Iraqi WMDS, since the issue we were discussing was the examples I
gave of Bush lying.

If I say that the Warren Comission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald
acted in concert with others I would be lying becuase that is NOT
what the Warren Comission said. Similarly, when Bush claimed that
the IAEA or UNMOVIC reported something they did not report, Bush lied
regardless of whether or not the report itself was true.

Do you get it yet? The issue of Bush lying is separate from the
issue of WMDs in Iraq.

However, the observation that all of the falsifieable statements
made by the Bush/Blair administration IRT Iraqi WMDs have been
falsified does little to inspire confidence in their honesty,
doesn't it?

>
> I also think you've got one of the strangest criteria for calling someone,
> including me, a liar. The threshhold of proof should be pretty high to call
> someone a liar, but you have a pretty liberal one.

I disagree. Deliberate misrepresentaion of another person's point of
view is lying.

Claiming to have said something that one did not, is lying.

Claiming that an arganization reported something that the organization
is question did not report is lying.

I submit that if you do NOT consider those things to be lying you
have a very weak grasp of the truth.

> The threshhold of proof should be pretty high to call
> someone a liar, but you have a pretty liberal one.

But as Heinlein noted, there are degrees of incompetence so extreme
as to be indistinguishible from malice.

When you fist cited the page from the New Republic Bulletin board I
was willing to accept that you were easily fooled. But then when
I pointed out to you the dishonesty of the author, you replied
that you couldn't be bothered to check it out.

Evidently you can be bothered to post ad hominems and false statements
about my opinions and the motives behind them, but STILL cannot be
bothered to check out the basis for that _World Tribune_ article.

> I think this is an
> artifact of your aim to call the President a liar at all costs.

I think you're either one of the laziest people to ever post on
the internet or patently dishonest. You have never once in this
discussion shown any dilligence yourself, you just jump straight
to accusations against me.

> As evidence
> to the contrary is thrown up at you, you are forced to refine your
> definition of what a liar is to justify continuing to call him one.

Returning to the very first example I gave, that of Bush saying that
those who opposed the invasion of Iraq thought Saddam Hussein could
be trusted, have you yet tried to ascertain if he said that or not?

> Eventually you get into a situation like Clinton talking about the
> definition of "is." Is that the company you really want to keep?

Clinton and Bush, no I do not care to hang out with them.

Nor you, it would seem.

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
> > > Sorry Fred, I lost your post from about 2 days ago re. where Bush lied
> and
> > > it's just not worth it to google it back up anyway.
> >
> > I don't believe you are sorry at all. Not looking up my article
> > saves you the trouble of addressing the examples of Bush lying
> > that I actually presented and perhaps in your mind at least allows
> > you the latitude to attribute claimes ot myself that I did not post.
>
> No it really just means that I don't have a lot of free time on my hands to
> dig it up. It's not easy starting a new business and all. I did check
> google but couldn't find that post for some reason. No matter though, I
> will address your issues.

Did it occur to you that maybe you could not find the article you
remembered because you did not remember it accurately? Like, maybe
you were seraching for strings that did not appear in articles I
wrote because I did not write what you remembered?

You're not able to address the issues accurately if you rely only on
your memory. No one could, but at least some realize that and
either make a conservative choice to either do some checking or STFU.

As you may recall, what ticked me off was when you refused to look
as the evidence I posted about one of your sources being bogus.
It's not like I was nitpicking on that (anonymous) author.

If you would actually compare the _World Tribune_ article you posted,
with the UNMOVIC report they claimed to be reporting on, you'd
see just how dishonest they were. Don't trust me, check it out
for yourself. This is not an issue of whether the _World Tribune_
was right on the facts and UNMOVIC wrong. The _World Tribune_
claimed the UNMOVIC report was its source.

You went on to say that you didn't care if Iraq had WMDs or not,
Sadam Hussein needed to be deposed anyways. That is an opinion
I can respect even though disagreeing with the prioritization and
methodology.

But you then went on to say that you hadn't been following the
issue of Iraqi WMDs since befor the war. Again, by itself, that
wouldn't bother me since you did not think it was the issue on
which to base a decision. What ticked me off was that you had
been and continue to argue the WMD issue despite the fact that
you had not been following the issue.

> >
> > >
> > > I asked for a simple instance of proof where Bush lied, and you wrote a
> > > dissertation on everything but that.
> >
> > I gave you two examples in this thread. One was the lie frequently
> > made by Bush, that those who opposed the invasion thought Saddam
> > Hussein could be trusted. You offered two defenses:
> >
> > 1) That you didn't remember Bush saying that.
>
> I never said that. You are confusing me with someone else.

No, I misremembered your exact words:

<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=rw54d.5%246X1.22991%40news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net&output=gplain>

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

I doubt Bush ever said that everybody opposed to the invasion
necessarily
trusts SH.

It was my interpretation and assumption that you did not remember him
saying it, else you would not have doubted that he ever said it.

The reader is encouraged to review that article and a few that
preceded
it to keep the context straight. I'm trying to preserve the context
of
the parts I quote, but may have not understood Mr White well
enough to have done so accurately.

>
> >
> > 2) Deliberate and malicious misrepresentation of another person's
> > point of view was not lying, it was the expression of an opinon.
> >
>
> Again, I never said that. You are the one saying it is "deliberate and
> malicious."

Agreed.

> Whether it is so is debatable. I said, if I recall correctly
> (it was a while ago), that what you are calling lies are, IMO, matters of
> opinion.

Your exact words:

Even if he did, this is not a lie. It is a point of view, an
opinion.

> If I deliberately and maliciously misrepresent your statements
> then they are lies.

Agreed.

*I* said and still say that Bush deliberately and maliciously mis-
represented the reasons we were opposed to the invasion.

To my knowledge, no one argued that Sadadm Hussein could be trusted,
and you certainly have never shown that any one did say that. There
were many arguments advanced by those of us were oppose to the
invasion and Bush never addressed any of them. One principle argument
IMHO can be summarized as that we could rely on vigilance and
deterrance.
To equate vigilance and deterrance with trust is a malicious mis-
representation.

You also wrote:

You just said they didn't resist the UN in 2003.
The implication is that they had nothing to hide and so must not
really have any WMDs. So you are trusting SH's word that they have
nothing to hide.
...
I think some people who think they do not trust SH really are
doing so without even knowing it.

The implication of those remarks is that I think Saddam Hussein
could be trusted. I assure you that is a misrepresentation
of my opinion. It appears to be malicious as the alternative
explanation is an extreme degree of density.

>
> > I then went on to explain that it was my opinion that deliberate
> > misrepresentation of another person's point of view was lying.
> > ISTR you argued that misrepresentation is a synonym for lying.
>
> Well, yes I accused you of calling Bush a liar. You denied that and after
> about 3 posts finally came around and agreed. Now you can't stop calling
> him one. How funny is that?

What you just wrote is quite pathetic, not funny. I did not deny
calling Bush a liar. I denied calling Bush a liar for the reasons
you falsely attributed to me:

[email protected] (Fred the Red Shirt) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> >
> >
> > How rich is this? Aren't you the one saying conclusively that "Bush lied"
> > simply because he and his administration disagreed with the UN
> > recommendations and/or findings that you like to cite?
>
> No.
>

And in subsequent articles I clarfied that point to you:

[email protected] (Fred the Red Shirt) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

Note your use of the word 'simply' which, if I understand the
meaning of the word 'simply', implies that I have no other reasons.
In fact, I do and I have explained some of them to you, and IIRC
it was in one such explanation that I said "Bush lied".
...

Evidently you didn't get it the first time. Do you get it this time?
I hold my opinions for the reasons I present to you, not for
reasons you invernt for the purpose of rebuttal. See also
"straw man".

>
> I recall perfectly well when Bush said that people who wanted to leave
> Saddam in power were putting their trust in a madman. It is pretty clear he
> said that.

Now you do. Evidently not so befor, unless you attach more
significance
to your use of the word 'necessarily' than I do. IMHO the absence of
any reference to any alternative viewpoint implies 'necessarily'.

I'l allow as he may have said madman sometimes, and other times
said "Saddam Hussien" or just "Saddam".

> I believe there are plenty of people who (1) thought Saddam was
> cooperating with the UN well enough if not perfectly and wasn't really a
> threat (those people clearly fit Bush's description). There were others,
> like maybe yourself, who (2) did not trust Saddam as far as you could throw
> him, yet were against invasion. Those types put more trust in the UN
> resolutions and weapons inspectors to keep him in a box.

That's a reasonably accurate assessment, of part, but only part of the
argfument.

I'll add that there
was also deterrance. The last time he attacked a neighboring country
it was an unmitigated disaster for Iraq and the time befor that he
was fought to a standstill despite his alliance with the world's
strongest superpower as well as some support from the Soviet Union.
The one thing I did trust Saddam Hussein to do was to try to remain
in power. And THAT worked well to our advantage.

> I believe Bush's
> point is that no matter what camp you are in, you really do have to put some
> amount of trust in Saddam eventually even if you don't realize you are doing
> so. Look at just the inspection programs. You can't have an effective
> inspection if Saddam isn't cooperating with them and is undermining the
> process at every turn, can you?

Actually you can. An active inspections program would impose
significant
obstacles on any attempt to make proscribed weapons. It might not be
possible to find well-hidden weapons but any effort to move them
around
would risk discovery. Any effort to manufacture more would risk
discovery.
One of the poorly understood technical issues was the short shelf
life of the Iraqi munitions, a few years at best. His binary
munitions
(and BTW thank you for promtping me to look into that further) might
last longer than the others but we haven't seen any real estimates of
the quality of his binaries nor estimates of their longevity. Clearly
there was every reason to suppose they were inferior to US binary
munitions.

For technical reasons, keeping a nuclear enrichment program or an
operating reactor hidden with inspectors in-country was not even
a remote possiblity. The kilogram quantities of U-235 seized by
UNSCOM were refined prior to 1991.

> Are you sure you aren't putting some trust
> in Saddam to cooperate when you push for more inspections? Let's say you
> counter that point by saying that you're not trusting Saddam, and even
> though he doesn't cooperate, the inspections take time and effort for Saddam
> to counteract. Is that really the most effective policy?

As I said, I trusted Sadam Hussein to do anything necessary to stay
in power. Otherwise, you well represent my position.

As to effectiveness, the most likely forseeable effects of an
invasion,
IRT to WMDS were:

1) Immediate use against the Coalition forces.

2) Proliferation as paramilitary groups get hold of the WMDs when
Saddam Hussein loses control. I did not want to see WMDs in
the hands of Hammas, Hezbollah etc.

IMHO both of these were less desirable than continuing the inspection
program and no-fly zones until Saddam Hussein died of old age. Maybe
his sons would have been just as bad, maybe not, maybe they'd have
been assasinated or overthrown. Just about all the forseeable
consequences of the inspections program were better than 1) and
2) above.

> You could take
> that position, that pushing for more inspections does not require trust in
> Saddam, but I think this is a very nuanced point and not one most people,
> other than you, might take.

To the contrary I think that nearly everyone pushing for continued
inspections was taking that position.

>
> The reality is that Saddam did everything but cooperate with inspectors and
> the UN in general.

Your basis for saying this is what, exactly? You're not saying that
your _suspicion_ based on past history is that Saddam did everything
but cooperate with inspectors, which I agree is a position for which
there is a rational basis. You are saying _definitely_ that Sadda
Hussein did everything but cooperate with inspectors andthe UN in
general, right?

I assume that 'in general' is part of 'UN in general" and not meaning
a lack of cooperation in general.

My basis for saying that he did cooperate with inspectors and the UN
in general in late 2002 and early 2003 is that is exactly what the
inspectors and UN said. I do seem to recall Bush saying that he did
not. Hmm...

> Leaving Saddam in power would amount to trusting that he
> no longer help train and pay reward for terrorists, continue to develop WMDs
> and so on. You just can't prevent him from doing all the bad stuff that he
> wanted to do.

No, it would amount to deciding that the expected consequences of
invading Iraq were worse than the expected consequences of the
alternatives.

Indeed, this leads us to another bushlie. Kerry never said the
world was safer with Saddam Hussein in power. (Although arguably
that was literally true.) He said that we are les safe now (here I
paraphrase but feel free to find an axact quote) than befor the
invasion. But Bush says that Kerry says the world woudl be safer
with Saddam Hussein in power.

It is a deliberate, maliciousl misrepresentation of what Kerry's
position which IIUC, is that the destabilization of Iraq has made
the world a more dangerous place.

> Bush said that people who want to leave Saddam in power are
> relying on a madman to keep his word. The fact that some of those "anti
> war" people don't realize that they are, in effect, going to have to trust
> Saddam at some point doesn't make his statement false.
>
> But let's say you disagree with everything I just said, which I'm pretty
> sure is the case. This is a far cry from a lie.

I agree that what you have written is more on par with a mistake than
it is with a lie. If honest you are simply mistaken in your belief as
to what others are thinking and the implications thereof.

I also mistrust people who claim to have insights into the inner
workings of the minds (implied by "those... people don't realize")
of the people with whom they disagree. I certainly do not believe
that your claim to having that kind of insight is factually correct.
There are logical alternatives to your conclusion and you present
no logical reason to prefer your 'psychoanalysis' instead.

What you claim as 'fact' is your own psychobabble. IN fact, we
realize that we had to remain vigilant and rely on detererance
because Sadadm Hussein could not be trusted.

> It is his position (imo)
> that people who want to leave the man in power are, in effect, trusting that
> he do the right thing whether they realize it or not. That just isn't a
> lie. It is an opinion. Isn't it pretty plain and simple to see that it is
> his opinion? I mean, did Bush ever profess to have proof that everybody on
> Earth who opposed invasion trusted the man?

Your addition of the caveat 'in effect' is a key element in convering
the literal misrepresentation of an opposing viewpoint to an opinion
of the consequences of that opposing viewpoint. It is less dishonest
than what Bush actually said.

In fact, anyone who trusted Sadam Hussein would argue against
inspections, arguing that they were unecessary.

>
> Kerry says, "It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."
> Well, a lot of people thing it was the right war in the right place at the
> right time. Does that make Kerry a liar?

Not apropos. Your example is that of Kerry expressing his own
opinion
about HIS own thoughts. That is not at all analogous to Bush
attributing
an opinion to others who had never expressed nor implied that opinion.

Here's an appropriate example:

Suppose Kerry were to say "Bush's idea of a health care plan is to
pray you don't get sick." That would be a lie (I hope!) and it
would be the same sort of lie as Bush said.

> I think it does ONLY if Kerry
> really, truly believes it was the right thing to do but is just saying that
> to get elected. There's no reason to think Bush believed anything other
> than what he was saying about defeating Saddam.
>
> I just don't see a lie on this one, and neither did Dan Rather.

I do not recall Dan Rather addressing the issue at all, but
then again I cannot recall the last time I heard Dan Rather say
anything (as opposed to hearing ABOUT Dan Rather saying things.)

I see it as a lie and as precisely the sort of lie that is
commoplace on the part of politicians. That it is so commonplace
does not make it less of a lie.



> >
> > The second example of Bush lying was an instance in which he claimed
> > to have previously made a statement that he had not. The statement
> > in question was in fact a paraphrasal of a statement frequently made
> > by Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. Had Bush said "I always believed
> > that ...." then one could possibly argue that he had secretly always
> > agreed with the Gore statement, even though it had never passed his lips
> > in public. But that is not what he said. What he said was "I always
> > said that...' when in fact he NEVER said it. That's a lie.
>
> Like I said before, I'm not so quick to believe one reporter's review

In this case I can see why you don't care to take the time to check
it out. As I noted at the time, it is trivial.

> everything that was said during an entire political campaign.
> if Bush was taken out of context which happens so frequently. Did Bush say
> that he said that during campaign speeches? I'll give you one and say that
> maybe Bush did lie about this. The jury is open and certainly not proven.
> You don't take one reporter's word on anything. Dan Rather taught that
> lesson well.

I say it is proven to those who have taken the time to examine
the question rather than trusting a single source. The only
jurors who are out are those who haven't heard the evidence.

>
> >
> > Your defense of Bush, as I recall, was an obfuscating paragraph
> > about deficits. Not very honest on your part, eh?
>
> Don't remember it. Maybe someone else said that like the other stuff you
> attributed to me.

<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=H146d.8662%24NS1.4285437%40news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net&output=gplain>

I must say you have an extremely low tolerance for what you
consider a lie
(I assume we are talking about the first article - deficits). This
is
reeeally pushing it. Even in this article they back off on it in
the last
paragraph.

I recall Bush saying that balanced budgets are off the table in
times of
war, etc. I don't know whether he said it in 2000, and this
article doesn't
convince me either way if he did or didn't at the time. In any
case, you'd
have to be a complete moron to expect a balanced budget during the
"triple
threat" events. Why would you even WANT one during those times?
Do people
really want a balanced budget to stop their welfare checks and govt
subsidies just because of depression, war or natural disaster?
Perish the
thought!

Also:

<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=gdp6d.2650%24kq6.2021424%40news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net&output=gplain>

I went off on that tangent because it shows how immaterial this
whole
subject is. What's the diff if Bush did or didn't say it in 2000?
Would
you bet $100 that Bush never had this conversation with anybody
during the
campaign in 2000? I sure wouldn't based on one reporter's article.
If Bush
had said something like he predicted the 9/11 attack in the 2000
campaign,
now you'd have something I'd be concerned about. This issue isn't
helping
anybody's anti Bush argument. It just looks petty because it is
such an
obvious thing anyway. OF COURSE we are going to run deficits when
necessary. Why would anybody even bother to look up and find out
when/where
he said that?

Why, to see if he was lying, of course.

>
> >
> > In another thread I referred you to an instance in which Bush claimed
> > that the IAEA stated a conclusion in a report which the IAEA had
> > not. You never addressed that false attribution on Bush's part.
> > Maybe you do not consider a false statement about what an organization
> > has reported to be lying, I do.
>
> I know nothing about it. My instinct again is that there is more to the
> story. You don't seem to understand that people can say things that are not
> true, yet not be lying. He has a staff, he has intelligence reports and on
> and on. Do you consider yourself to be lying everytime you say something
> that turns out not to be true?

I think that if you hire a staff that writes lies into your speeches
you are responsible.

It is also fine with me that you do not accept this without having
checked it out for yourself.

It is also fine with me if you do not check it out for yourself.

It is not fine with me if you say you haven't seen proof to support
the accusation that Bush lied when the obvious reason that you have
not is that you have declined to look at the evidence provided.

>
> >
> > I also cited the false statement that Bush made about the Medusa
> > missle tubes. You ignored that.
>
> See above.

Ditto.

>
> >
> > I also cited a false statement Bush made about a report on quantities
> > of unacounted for growth media in January, 2003. You ignored that.
>
> See above.
>

Ditto.

> >
> > Of course I already covered this ground in the earlier article you
> > didn't bother to review befor writing your reply.
>
> You apparently didn't understand anything I said earlier about lying. You
> aren't showing me any proof of lying. I'll take you at your word (for the
> sake of argument) that he said things that were not backed up by the
> reports. Now prove to me he was lying. You can't, and Dan Rather can't.
> If you tried to sue the President for lying, what would your evidence be?

Such a suit would be frivolous. Lying is not a tort. No one can
prove
anything to you because you will not consider the evidence.

> Give me a secret Oval Office tape recording where Bush says, "Now we're
> gonna take this here IAEA report as evidence and throw in a few of our own
> conclusions...nobody, not even Dan Rather, is going to notice."

At this point I think that if I gave you just such a tape you would
decline to listen to it and continue to say that you had not seen
proof that Bush lied. For that matter, after listening to it you
might well still continue to say that you had not seen proof that
Bush lied because hearing is not seeing.

>
> >
> > > I look at it another way. Dan Rather,
> > > by any objective standard, leans considerably to the left. This had to
> be a
> > > factor in his problems with the Bush TANG debacle. Now, don't you think
> if
> > > there were any evidence that the President of the US LIED about
> intelligence
> > > or anything else to justify going to war that this would be big news?
> >
> > I look at your introduction of Dan Rather into this, er, discussion
> > to be obfuscation. If you want to discuss examples I gave of Bush
> > lying then why not discuss examples I gave of Bush lying?
>
> The fact that you say Rather is obfuscation shows me that you are more
> interested in defending your turf than you are in actually understanding
> what I am saying. I'm really not trying to attack you, I'm just trying to
> get you to realize that you have already convicted Bush of being a liar, and
> are using these different examples of what appears, at worst, to be
> intelligence or communication errors, or errors in the media reports you are
> reading (ie, out of context reporting). You've got it backwards. Go find
> some real lies and then you can think poorly of his character.
>

Damn, I hate to think of what you'd say about me if you WERE attacking
me.

It is also amuzing that you claim "Dan Rather, by any objective
standard,
eans considerably to the left." In fact there is no objective
standard
for determining is anyone is left or right leaning. Left and Right,
in the political context, are entirely subjective concepts.

I'll agree that sometimes a politician misquotes someone by accident
or misattributes a conclusion to a source that never stated that
conclusion by accident. But when that occurs with the frequently,
in prepared remarks, and the wrong information is always pointing
the same way it is naive to suppose mere error is at play.


>
> >
> > If I say that the Warren Comission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald
> > acted in concert with others I would be lying becuase that is NOT
> > what the Warren Comission said. Similarly, when Bush claimed that
> > the IAEA or UNMOVIC reported something they did not report, Bush lied
> > regardless of whether or not the report itself was true.
>
> Of course, and how stupid would Bush have to be to stand in front of
> reporters at a press conference and have to defend the indefensible?

Not stupid at all. The people who won't catch the lie, won't believe
others who say they caught it, won't check it out for themselves, or
don't care in the first place, IOW people like you, are legion. I
don't think he or any politician gives a damn about being caught
lying so long as those who catch him either won't vote against him
in sufficient numbers to matter.

I don't claim he is more dishonest than other politicians, only
that he is no less dishonest than other politicians.

> I
> don't believe it was that simple, sorry. Unlike you, I come from the
> standpoint of giving him the benefit of the doubt. The whole point about
> Dan Rather is a metaphor for the mainstream media at large. If there were
> clear lies, LIES, NOT OPINIONS, don't you think we'd be having nightly
> newscasts about how it is now "DAY 43" in the president's refusal to answer
> charges of lying to the American people? The fact that they had to go back
> to some stupid forged documents (which they STILL do not admit were forged)
> about an inconsequential subject proves to me that there's nothing to this
> lying stuff.

Do you really think that the press goes so far as to fabricate a
exact quote from Bush? Do you think that the White House publishes
false transcripts of his speeches, altered to make it appear that
he lied? Do you think that the IAEA reports posted online by the UN
are fabrications that have been edited after
the fact to make it look like Bush lied?

*I* showed you one example of how a surce you were using had
fabricated
a story. In doing so you could have seen how easy it is to catch.

...
> >
> > However, the observation that all of the falsifieable statements
> > made by the Bush/Blair administration IRT Iraqi WMDs have been
> > falsified does little to inspire confidence in their honesty,
> > doesn't it?
>
> Not really.

How about an example instead of a vague allusion?

>You have just indicted every politician in every nation for the
> last decade, all of whom were convinced that Saddam had lots of bad stuff.

Up until when? That is the seminal issue that you keep ignoring.
My objection is not to holding that opinion in the absence of evidence
to the contrary. My objection is to holding that opinion in the
presence of evidence to the conttrary to the extent that non-evidence
can be evidence. But that is a consequence of logic. Which brings us
to another point about how transparently dishonest Bush was on the
Iraq disarmament issue.

Bush's demand that Saddam Hussein prove that he had no WMDs could
never be proven. If he turned over 100 tones each of VX, Sarin,
Mustard,
anthrax etc etc to UNMVOC Bush could always claim it was just the tip
of the iceberg.

And supposing, as the evidence indicate, that Iraq had been unable to
manufacuture new WMDs since befor 1991, or had unilaterally destroyed
them in the period between 1998 and 2003. Then Iraq could not even
approach that standard of proof.

The use of the word 'innocent' is hardly appropriate to Iraq but
that objection aside Bush's demand was a trick bag. He required
proof of innocence that could not be met by an innocent party.

> I'm perfectly content in saying this was a non-partisan screw up, even
> though it hasn't been proven that he weapons weren't moved out of country,
> or aren't still there.

It is never significant that a nonfalsifiable hypothesis has not
been falsified.

Supposing that Iraqi WMDs turn up outside of Iraq, as they may have
in Jordan. That just proves my point above about how the invasion
led to proliferation and loss of control. It proves Kerry's point
too.

> I'll agree that there wasn't much in the way of
> nuclear stuff yet, but there was plenty in the works after the sanctions
> were lifted. That's proven. That and the tons of uranium that were removed
> from Iraq.

Do you mean the 2.6% enriched material that was under IAEA seal?

> >
> > Evidently you can be bothered to post ad hominems and false statements
> > about my opinions and the motives behind them, but STILL cannot be
> > bothered to check out the basis for that _World Tribune_ article.
> >
>
> I think you have a very thin skin if you believe I've been throwing ad
> hominems at you. In fact, I'm the one who admitted that you know more about
> UNMOVIC details than I did, and what did I get in return? -- a barrage of
> nasty comments.

Odd, I generally consider 'asshole' to be an insult. But if you do
not,
that's OK. In the future I'll feel free to apply the term to you,
confident that you'll not be offended.

>
> > > I think this is an
> > > artifact of your aim to call the President a liar at all costs.
> >
> > I think you're either one of the laziest people to ever post on
> > the internet or patently dishonest. You have never once in this
> > discussion shown any dilligence yourself, you just jump straight
> > to accusations against me.
>
> The only thing I've accused you of is calling the president a liar, which
> you eventually proved me right on, and misunderstanding what proof of a lie
> constitues. I'm sorry if you somehow see that as an attack.

'your aim to call the President a liar at all costs.' accuses me of
a more than calling the president a liar. It is a de facto accusation
that I chose the conclusion and then looked ofr evidence, rather than
vice-versa.

>
> >
> > Returning to the very first example I gave, that of Bush saying that
> > those who opposed the invasion of Iraq thought Saddam Hussein could
> > be trusted, have you yet tried to ascertain if he said that or not?
>
> Again, I didn't say that, and if I did say anything remotely like that it
> was in a completely different context. I clearly remember him saying that,
> but I recall the word "madman" in there as well.

Huh? I _never_ claimed that _you_ said that, I claimed that bush said
that.

>
> Try not to take things so personally. Maybe your defensiveness keeps you
> from understanding my side of the discussion. I completely understand
> yours, but it is clear to me that you have indicted the man based on a
> misunderstanding of his motives.
>

No, I recognize that he tells the same sorts of lies as do all
politicans. I simply call a spade a spade, at least unless I'm
playing euchre.

Whenever a politician prefaces a statement with "My oppenent says"
it is likelythat a lie is about to follow and only slightly less
likely if the preface is "I never said" or "I always said".

I do not think we should relax the standard for what we call the
truth simply because politicians find lies to be useful.

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
>
> ... I'll concede for argument's sake your point that Bush may have
> said some things that are contrary to the UNMOVIC report.
> ...

That was not my point.


>
> You know, let's just kill this thread. Let's just agree that politicians in
> general tend to take advantage of the electorate when it suits their needs.
> Make you final comments if you want. I'll just point out quickly where you
> are wrong and then I'm really done with it. ;) (That was a joke, OK?)
>

Why not just remove rec.woodworking from the distribution list?

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
>
> > >
> > > You know, let's just kill this thread. Let's just agree that
> politicians in
> > > general tend to take advantage of the electorate when it suits their
> needs.
> > > Make you final comments if you want. I'll just point out quickly where
> you
> > > are wrong and then I'm really done with it. ;) (That was a joke, OK?)
> > >
> >
> > Why not just remove rec.woodworking from the distribution list?
> >
>
> From the what?
>

Sorry, the "Newsgroups:" list.

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
>
> http://www.cia.gov/nic/articles_iraq_wmd.htm
>
> It is an interesting read. One of the important points is:
> "Let me be clear: The NIE judged with high confidence that Iraq had chemical
> and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150
> km limit imposed by the UN Security Council, and with moderate confidence
> that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons. These judgments were essentially the
> same conclusions reached by the United Nations and by a wide array of
> intelligence services-friendly and unfriendly alike. The only government in
> the world that claimed that Iraq was not working on, and did not have,
> biological and chemical weapons or prohibited missile systems was in
> Baghdad. Moreover, in those cases where US intelligence agencies disagreed,
> particularly regarding whether Iraq was reconstituting a uranium enrichment
> effort for its nuclear weapons program, the alternative views were spelled
> out in detail. Despite all of this, ten myths have been confused with facts
> in the current media frenzy. A hard look at the facts of the NIE should
> dispel some popular myths making the media circuit. [end]

A more important point is that the author of that editorial is
referring
to _The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)_

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm

Please note the date OCTOBER 2002. That is FIVE months before the
invasion.

Based in part on the information in that report Bush went to the UN
and
together the US and the UN demanded a return of the inspectors to
Iraq.

Here are the results of that inspection process as of the eve of the
invasion:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4122113/

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2004/inspectionsiraq20040202.html

Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program, no evidence of stockpiles
of chemical or biological weapons were found. No manufacturing
facilities
were found. Up to that point and Iraq was cooperating with the
weapons inspectors. The missles that were found by UNMOVIC to exceed
the permitted
range did so only marginally in a zero-payload test. Whether that was
a substative violation or not may be debated, but what is not
debatable
is that the missle were declared and made available to UNMOVIC for
inspection.

It was perfectly reasonable to accept the October 2002 report as
the best assessment of the situation in October 2002. But, and
cannot be emphasized enough, when better data became available from
people on the ground in Iraq what excuse did Bush have for ignoring
it? What excuse did you have? As far as I can tell, NONE.

I do not understand why it is so hard for you to grasp the concept
that the October 2002 report was not the final word on the issue.

Besides, here is what teh uS Senate concluded about it:

http://msnbc.msn.com/ID/5403731

Conclusion 1. Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence
Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE),
Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction,
either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying
intelligence reporting.


Did you compare the editorial you reference with the October 2002
document about which Mr Cohen was writing? This caught my eye:

we included the Niger issue with appropriate caveats,
for the sake of completeness.

This refers to the forged Iraq-Niger correspondence obtained by the
Italians, turned over to the UK who in turn turned it over to us
who in turn turned it over to the IAEA. These were clumsy and
obvious forgeries including correspondence from the 1980s, when
Iraq DID buy yellowcake from Niger but with the dates changed to
make them appear mor recent. Notably, in regard to those date
changes the day of the month no longer matched the day of the week
in several places (as reported in 2003 by the Washington Post).

Here is what it says in the October 2002 report:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/h072103.html

A foreign government service reported that as of early
2001, Niger planned to send several tons of ``pure uranium''
(probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and
Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this
deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do
not know the status of this arrangement.
Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from
Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring
uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources.

Evidently Mr Cohen feels that "We cannot confirm..." is an appropriate
caveat. IMHO that is hardly sufficient when the evidence supplied by
the "foreign government service " was an obvious, clumsy forgery.

Now, some British and American sources claim that there was other
evidence independent of the forged documents. I have thwo things to
day about that. One, the forged documents are STILL forged and US
and UK submitted them to the IAEA as if they were genuine. Two, to
accept that other independent evidence we have to accept the word
of the same people who foisted the forged documents on us.

Fool us once, shame on him, and we won't be fooled again.

Just today (now yesterday) I caught bush in yet another bald-faced
lie.

Kerry has been repeating his criticism that when bin Laden was
cornered in Tora Bora he got away because Bush 'outsourced' the
job to warlords who only a week before had been fighting for the other
side instead of using the best trained, best equipped and dedicated
troops in the world, American troops eager to avenge the attacks of
Sept 11.

Bush's response was to acccuse Kerry of criticising the US military
for failing to capture Bin Laden in Tora Bora.

That's Bush showing his ass, er character for you.

But don't trust me to paraphrase them correctly, look up what
they each said for yourself.

As to the argument that the fact that there has not been a foreign
based attack on American soil since September 11, 2001 I point out
that the previous bin Laden attacks on US soil were 8 years apart
with major attacks overseas at 2 - 4 year intervals.

That first attack on the WTC was in February, 1993 less than
a month after Clinton took office. It was plotted and carried out
by men who enterred the country when GH Bush was president. Clinton
kept us safe from foreign attack at home for the rest of his two
terms, remember the millenium bombing?

At least half the men involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks
entered the US after GW Bush took office. One was picked up on
an immigration violation although most did enter illegally. Two
were issued automatic visa renewals by the INS in the late Fall
2001, months after they had died in the attacks.

Remember the 1200 Middle Easterners Ashcroft disappeared into our
Gulag? Some idiots probably think that made us safer. I think
now Arab-Americans are rightfully afraid to come forward and
volunteer any information they might have. Other Arabs or Arab
Americans have been convicted of serious crimes for shooting vedoes
whil on vacation and playing paintball. I don't think that
makes us safe.

Sweden, France, and the UK have protested our mistreatment of
their nationals at Guantanamo Bay, including our rejection of
the Geneva Conventions. While a competent court or tribunal
might find that the Geneva conventions were not applicable to
some individuals incarcerated there, no such court or tribunal
has ever considered the issue. And the Geneva conventions
require that they be extended to prisoner during the time
that their eligibility is in dispute. Additionally the Geneva
conventions prohibit blanket judgement or mass punishments. It
is strictly forbidden ot simple declare that all captives of
some ilk do not qualify for the protections. That judgement
has to be made on a case by case basis for each individual
in question.

And so it goes. Is it any wonder that Vladimir Putin, the current
dictator of Russia, has endorsed the reelection of George W Bush?
Clinton, Carter, even Reagan took an active interest in protecting
the civil rights of the Russian people. Putin doesn't have
that problem with Bush.

Character my ass.

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> crossposting eliminated

I've restored the crossposting because the other newsgroups are
relevent
to the topic. If you want to eliminate the crossposting, why not
eliminate
the rec.woodworking where this material is indisputably OFF-topic?

sheesh

>
> "Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
> > >...

> > _The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's
> > Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)_
> >
> > http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
> >
> > Please note the date OCTOBER 2002. That is FIVE months before the
> > invasion.
> >
> > Based in part on the information in that report Bush went to the UN
> > and
> > together the US and the UN demanded a return of the inspectors to
> > Iraq.
> >
> > Here are the results of that inspection process as of the eve of the
> > invasion:
> >
> > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4122113/
>
> First of all anyone who puts in his report a quote from Cheney saying "We
> will not hesitate to discredit you" as some sort of insinuation that the
> admin was out to lie about the inspections is being reckless.

Even Cheney is capable of greater sublety than a simple F--- You.

> ...
> >
> > http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2004/inspectionsiraq20040202.html
> >
> > ... Up to that point and Iraq was cooperating with the
> > weapons inspectors.
>
> I don't believe it. Iraq was not cooperating with anybody to any real level
> of acceptability.

You keep saying that yet it is contradicted by the clear unambiguous
statements of all the people he was supposed to be cooperating with.

> Bush never called Iraq an imminent threat -- those are
> words put in his mouth by others. You say he had no nuclear program? When
> you have your top nuclear scientist bury nuclear weapons plans in his back
> yard under penalty of death I consider that part of a nuclear program. Let
> the UN in to look around some and when they leave start everything back up
> again.
>

Buried parts are not being used for anyting. That is not a program.
Where did that pain of death business come from?

The UN was never going to leave. The inspections were open-ended.
That's another point that is lost on people who don't pay attention.
You seem to think that the IAEA was never going to visit Iraq again.

> >
> > It was perfectly reasonable to accept the October 2002 report as
> > the best assessment of the situation in October 2002. But, and
> > cannot be emphasized enough, when better data became available from
> > people on the ground in Iraq what excuse did Bush have for ignoring
> > it? What excuse did you have? As far as I can tell, NONE.
>
> You're acting like Saddam had no options to change his game plan in 5 months
> before he allowed inspectors back in.

Huh?

> He did kick them out originally.

Nonsense. They wisely left when Clinton notified them of impending
military action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein did not let them back
in until 2002, but it is just plain dishonest to say he kicked them
out.

Note I'm not defending Saddam Hussein or criticizing BJC.
I'm defending truth and criticizing those who distort it.

>
> >
> > I do not understand why it is so hard for you to grasp the concept
> > that the October 2002 report was not the final word on the issue.
>
> I'm fine with that.
>

You're fine with standing by the October 2002 report in the face of
better subsequent information?

>
>
> snip yellowcake stuf [specifically the forged documents.]
>
> >
> > Now, some British and American sources claim that there was other
> > evidence independent of the forged documents. I have thwo things to
> > day about that. One, the forged documents are STILL forged and US
> > and UK submitted them to the IAEA as if they were genuine. Two, to
> > accept that other independent evidence we have to accept the word
> > of the same people who foisted the forged documents on us.
> >
> > Fool us once, shame on him, and we won't be fooled again.
>
> Yes, it's kind of like believing the UN is an unbiased entity capable of
> providing good information on Iraq while pilfering billions from Iraq at the
> same time. You give more credibility to the UN than you do to our own
> government.

Our own government was caught foisting forged documents on the UN
Not vice versa.

> I do not. They have proven themselves corrupt time after time.
>

You've never presented any evidence of corruption of the IAEA or
UNMOVIC.

You made some vague references to a Global Warming report, I tried to
find it using search terms suggested by what you wrote but to no
avail.
Aside from which, that's hardly a related topic.

Is there any evidence to support your claim in the Duelfer report?
If so, what pages?

> >
>
> Uhh, that's exactly what Kerry did. It wasn't Bush's strategy, it was Tommy
> Franks'.

Tommy Franks is not the troops. If Bush wants to blame it on Franks
then he can go ahead and do that. Kerry made it clear that he blames
Bush. Kerry named Bush as the man at fault and had nothing but
praise for the US military.

The point is that when Kerry criticizes Bush that pucilineous wimp
doesn't even have the balls to stand up and defend himself. Instead
he claims Kerry was really criticizing the troops Kerry was praising.

Bush will say anything to pass the buck. He says he prays to God
for guidance. Does that mean that if he runs out of people to blame
he'll blame God? (Maybe God really is guiding Bush, I guess that
implies that God hates us.)


>
> snip stuff on detainees
>
> ...
>
> My God Fred, if this stuff concerns you then I can only imagine how many
> blood vessels you would have popped had you lived back during WW2. There is
> a war going on, ya know?

Got any idea how many American GIs were prosecuted for violating the
Laws of War in WWII? Our leaders back then were serious about moral
responsibility and did not so easily abandon the rule of law.

>
> You want to compare Bush to communists?

No. How bizarre that you would suggest doing so.

>
> The people who believe Bush was lying about everything in Iraq have yet to
> present a reasonable explanation as to WHY Bush went into Iraq even though
> he KNEW they posed no threat. Why did he do it?

In an earlier thread I answerred that. You yourself have argued
that WMDs were not the only nor (I think) the best reason for the
invasion while still arguing that the invasion was justified. So
why do you suppose Bush could not be in agreement with you on
that point?

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
> >
> > > > _The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's
> > > > Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)_
> > > >
> > > > http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
> > > >
> > > > Please note the date OCTOBER 2002. That is FIVE months before the
> > > > invasion.
> > > >
> > > > Based in part on the information in that report Bush went to the UN
> > > > and
> > > > together the US and the UN demanded a return of the inspectors to
> > > > Iraq.
> > > >
> > > > Here are the results of that inspection process as of the eve of the
> > > > invasion:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4122113/
> > >...
> >
> > Buried parts are not being used for anyting. That is not a program.
> > Where did that pain of death business come from?
>
> From the guy who was hiding it. He has a book out about it called The Bomb
> in My Garden.

Ok, I was unclear on whether he was acting on orders or on his own
initiative. But it remeian true that buried parts are not a
program.

>
> >
> > The UN was never going to leave. The inspections were open-ended.
> > That's another point that is lost on people who don't pay attention.
> > You seem to think that the IAEA was never going to visit Iraq again.
>
> I'm not rehashing this again.
>
> >
> > > >
> > > > It was perfectly reasonable to accept the October 2002 report as
> > > > the best assessment of the situation in October 2002. But, and
> > > > cannot be emphasized enough, when better data became available from
> > > > people on the ground in Iraq what excuse did Bush have for ignoring
> > > > it? What excuse did you have? As far as I can tell, NONE.
> > >
> > > You're acting like Saddam had no options to change his game plan in 5
> months
> > > before he allowed inspectors back in.
> >
> > Huh?
>
> Let's say your intelligence shows a bomb is in Saddam's palace. Five months
> later Saddam lets inspectors in and the bomb is gone. Is the original intel
> bad or did Saddam just move the bomb in those five months? I don't know one
> way or the other, but AGAIN that is the point.

Crimony, don't you know how to use a calender! The Inpectors were back
in Iraq one month after the October 2002 report was issued. We waited
to invade until we had accumulated FOUR more MONTHS of intel that flatly
contradicted the October 2002 report.

Your Straw man fails because the claims were not of a bomb in his palace.
The claims included reconstruction and rebuilding of facilites that,
when inspections resumed, were still in the same state of destruction
and disrepair as when last inspected in 1998.

Fresh intel supplied to UNMOVIC in February and March 2002 proved
just as wrong. Weren't you paying attention?


> When you have a dictator who
> is not cooperating with you, it is the wrong policy to depend on UN
> inspections for the forseeable future where we all know that sanctions had
> been weakened over the years, not to mention the corruption. You can't stop
> a bad guy from doing bad things like supporting suicide bombers, training
> terrorists and on and on. We don't have to live like that post 9/11. Iraq
> had the 12 year track record and was a monster to boot. I'd do it all over
> again in a heartbeat, but of course with hindsight there are things they
> could have done better...but that's war.
>
> >
> > > He did kick them out originally.
> >
> > Nonsense. They wisely left when Clinton notified them of impending
> > military action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein did not let them back
> > in until 2002, but it is just plain dishonest to say he kicked them
> > out.
>
> Ya know, that's what I've heard and if it is wrong then fine, but a 10
> second google finds this from Salon, hardly right wing:
> http://www.salon.com/politics/letters/2002/11/15/inspectors/
>
> This sounds like it is much closer to the truth. Do you agree with this
> article? If so then how can you go around giving the impression that Uncle
> Saddam was cooperating until the big bad US made them run away?

From the article you cite:

Scott Ritter, head of the UNSCOM team at the time,
states that they were ordered out by the U.S. government
as it prepared to bomb locations -- based on data from
U.S. intelligence officers that were part of the inspection
team. (Ritter says so in a recent interview.)

Which is exactly what I wrote. I agree that Iraq was not cooperating
at that time (1998) which is why Clinton bombed the suspect facilities.


> > > >
> > > > I do not understand why it is so hard for you to grasp the concept
> > > > that the October 2002 report was not the final word on the issue.
> > >
[sniping deleted for brevity and politeness]
>
> ... I'm fine with the fact that better
> evidence can come along as time passes and you have to adjust your
> conclusions accordingly.

Cool.


> >
> > Our own government was caught foisting forged documents on the UN
> > Not vice versa.
>
> That's the whole issue of our debate in a nutshell. I believe our own
> government is looking out for our interests more than the UN, and you seem
> to believe that our government is lying to its people while the UN is this
> bastion of truth when the evidence of UN corruption points to the opposite.

A major issue in our debate is that I do not believe you are
authorized to represent my views. Thus I frequently need to correct
your misrepresntations.

For example, I believe UNMOVIC and IAEA because they have a demonstrated
history of impartiality and their reports and statements are consistent
with reality. The Bush administration has been caught in half-truths,
half lies and lies as has the Blair admin. Remember that report they
released in Word For Windows format that included plagiarization from
a 1980's report with the the dates updated to make the information appear
current.

Honest people don't do things like that.


> > You've never presented any evidence of corruption of the IAEA or
> > UNMOVIC.
>
> There was some when it came to French inspectors but I do not remember what
> year that was going on. I am pretty sure it was in the 90's when Ritter was
> there. It isn't completely a matter of corruption of the inspectors, moreso
> one of ineffectiveness in the long run against a regime that doesn't want to
> cooperate.

UNMOVIC was created in 1999.

>
> http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf
>
> >
> > Is there any evidence to support your claim in the Duelfer report?
> > If so, what pages?
>
> Not sure what you are referring to here.

The Duelfer report is the offical report of the United States
Iraq Survey group released this Fall. You really do not pay attention
do you?


>
> > > My God Fred, if this stuff concerns you then I can only imagine how many
> > > blood vessels you would have popped had you lived back during WW2.
> There is
> > > a war going on, ya know?
> >
> > Got any idea how many American GIs were prosecuted for violating the
> > Laws of War in WWII? Our leaders back then were serious about moral
> > responsibility and did not so easily abandon the rule of law.
>
> But if you lived back then you'd be calling FDR a liar and war criminal.

Again, I have not authorized you to represent my views.

> >
> > >
> > > You want to compare Bush to communists?
> >
> > No. How bizarre that you would suggest doing so.
>
> Not so bizarre if you realized you just made Bush and Putin out to be
> buddies. Didn't you know Putin wasa KGB official and most of his
> adminstration was also? These were communists?.

Does that mean if I had written that Ronald Reagan endorsed Bush
from his grave I would be comparing Bush to Democrats. After all,
Ronald Reagan was a Democrat.


> >
> > In an earlier thread I answerred that.
>
> What's the answer in say 3 lines or less. Just an overview snapshot. It's
> been so long I don't remember.

Google is your freind.

>
> >You yourself have argued
> > that WMDs were not the only nor (I think) the best reason for the
> > invasion while still arguing that the invasion was justified. So
> > why do you suppose Bush could not be in agreement with you on
> > that point?
> >
> WMD's were not the only reason we went in, but in the face of the evidence
> (yes I know you dispute that evidence) the WMD probably seemed like the best
> way to argue the case for invasion.
>

It was the best way to convince the Congress, yes. Bush also made
it clear that Iraq could avoid a military conflict through declaration,
inspection and disarmament. According the people responsible for
that, Iraq complied.

--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> It's probably best you reply on the politics groups you had this thread
> crosslinked with, and we'll leave these poor woodworking people alone
> already as you suggested on the other thread.
>

Done.



--

FF

"Dan White" <[email protected]> writes:
>Sorry Fred, I lost your post from about 2 days ago re. where Bush lied and
>it's just not worth it to google it back up anyway. So, I'm responding
>here, and then I'm pretty much done with the subject.
>
>I asked for a simple instance of proof where Bush lied, and you wrote a

Simple. Every time he says that Kerry flip-flopped on Iraq, he lies.

The real shame is that Bush supporters take every word he speaks as
gospel and don't actually think for themselves.

See the SF Chronicle newspaper article from their washington bureau chief:

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/23/MNGQK8TI8O1.DTL>

scott

"Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> > "Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]...
> > > "Dan White" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:<[email protected]>...
> > >
> > > > > _The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's
> > > > > Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)_
> > > > >
> > > > > http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
> > > > >
> > > > > Please note the date OCTOBER 2002. That is FIVE months before the
> > > > > invasion.
> > > > >
> > > > > Based in part on the information in that report Bush went to the
UN
> > > > > and
> > > > > together the US and the UN demanded a return of the inspectors to
> > > > > Iraq.
> > > > >
> > > > > Here are the results of that inspection process as of the eve of
the
> > > > > invasion:
> > > > >
> > > > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4122113/
> > > >...
> > >
> > > Buried parts are not being used for anyting. That is not a program.
> > > Where did that pain of death business come from?
> >
> > From the guy who was hiding it. He has a book out about it called The
Bomb
> > in My Garden.
>
> Ok, I was unclear on whether he was acting on orders or on his own
> initiative. But it remeian true that buried parts are not a
> program.

Buried parts and plans are strong evidence that Saddam had every intention
of starting a nuclear program back up once he manipulated the UN and
sufficiently.

>
> >
> > >
> > > The UN was never going to leave. The inspections were open-ended.
> > > That's another point that is lost on people who don't pay attention.
> > > You seem to think that the IAEA was never going to visit Iraq again.
> >
> > I'm not rehashing this again.
> >
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > > It was perfectly reasonable to accept the October 2002 report as
> > > > > the best assessment of the situation in October 2002. But, and
> > > > > cannot be emphasized enough, when better data became available
from
> > > > > people on the ground in Iraq what excuse did Bush have for
ignoring
> > > > > it? What excuse did you have? As far as I can tell, NONE.
> > > >
> > > > You're acting like Saddam had no options to change his game plan in
5
> > months
> > > > before he allowed inspectors back in.
> > >
> > > Huh?
> >
> > Let's say your intelligence shows a bomb is in Saddam's palace. Five
months
> > later Saddam lets inspectors in and the bomb is gone. Is the original
intel
> > bad or did Saddam just move the bomb in those five months? I don't know
one
> > way or the other, but AGAIN that is the point.
>
> Crimony, don't you know how to use a calender! The Inpectors were back
> in Iraq one month after the October 2002 report was issued. We waited
> to invade until we had accumulated FOUR more MONTHS of intel that flatly
> contradicted the October 2002 report.
>
> Your Straw man fails because the claims were not of a bomb in his palace.
> The claims included reconstruction and rebuilding of facilites that,
> when inspections resumed, were still in the same state of destruction
> and disrepair as when last inspected in 1998.
>
> Fresh intel supplied to UNMOVIC in February and March 2002 proved
> just as wrong. Weren't you paying attention?

OK Fred, what was I thinking? My bad. Yes, Bush completely ignored new
evidence so that Halliburton could make some money, and that the Bush family
would be in good graces with the Saudis and the Skull and Crossbones Society
would remain in control of the Trilateral commission. I get it now.

>
>
> > When you have a dictator who
> > is not cooperating with you, it is the wrong policy to depend on UN
> > inspections for the forseeable future where we all know that sanctions
had
> > been weakened over the years, not to mention the corruption. You can't
stop
> > a bad guy from doing bad things like supporting suicide bombers,
training
> > terrorists and on and on. We don't have to live like that post 9/11.
Iraq
> > had the 12 year track record and was a monster to boot. I'd do it all
over
> > again in a heartbeat, but of course with hindsight there are things they
> > could have done better...but that's war.
> >
> > >
> > > > He did kick them out originally.
> > >
> > > Nonsense. They wisely left when Clinton notified them of impending
> > > military action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein did not let them back
> > > in until 2002, but it is just plain dishonest to say he kicked them
> > > out.
> >
> > Ya know, that's what I've heard and if it is wrong then fine, but a 10
> > second google finds this from Salon, hardly right wing:
> > http://www.salon.com/politics/letters/2002/11/15/inspectors/
> >
> > This sounds like it is much closer to the truth. Do you agree with this
> > article? If so then how can you go around giving the impression that
Uncle
> > Saddam was cooperating until the big bad US made them run away?
>
> From the article you cite:
>
> Scott Ritter, head of the UNSCOM team at the time,
> states that they were ordered out by the U.S. government
> as it prepared to bomb locations -- based on data from
> U.S. intelligence officers that were part of the inspection
> team. (Ritter says so in a recent interview.)
>
> Which is exactly what I wrote. I agree that Iraq was not cooperating
> at that time (1998) which is why Clinton bombed the suspect facilities.

I heard that Ritter was paid $500,000 if I recall correctly by the Iraqi
government indirectly for a book or something. I forget the details, but
Ritter has some skeletons in the closet. The Salon article makes a lot more
sense, but it doesn't fit into your conspiracy theory.

>
>
> > > > >
> > > > > I do not understand why it is so hard for you to grasp the concept
> > > > > that the October 2002 report was not the final word on the issue.
> > > >
> [sniping deleted for brevity and politeness]
> >
> > ... I'm fine with the fact that better
> > evidence can come along as time passes and you have to adjust your
> > conclusions accordingly.
>
> Cool.
>
>
> > >
> > > Our own government was caught foisting forged documents on the UN
> > > Not vice versa.
> >
> > That's the whole issue of our debate in a nutshell. I believe our own
> > government is looking out for our interests more than the UN, and you
seem
> > to believe that our government is lying to its people while the UN is
this
> > bastion of truth when the evidence of UN corruption points to the
opposite.
>
> A major issue in our debate is that I do not believe you are
> authorized to represent my views. Thus I frequently need to correct
> your misrepresntations.

Note I used the words "you seem."

>
> For example, I believe UNMOVIC and IAEA because they have a demonstrated
> history of impartiality and their reports and statements are consistent
> with reality. The Bush administration has been caught in half-truths,
> half lies and lies as has the Blair admin. Remember that report they
> released in Word For Windows format that included plagiarization from
> a 1980's report with the the dates updated to make the information appear
> current.
>
> Honest people don't do things like that.

You may be right. I believe some evidence was made more of than should have
been, but what is happening now is Monday morning quarterbacking. I also
believe strongly that going into Iraq was the right thing to do. Also,
impartiality has nothing to do with effectiveness. In the long run, you
can't keep a guy like Saddam from doing what he ultimately aims to do. I
think the history of his relationship with the UN and others proves this
(bribes, weakening of sanctions, etc).
>
> > >
> > > Is there any evidence to support your claim in the Duelfer report?
> > > If so, what pages?
> >
> > Not sure what you are referring to here.
>
> The Duelfer report is the offical report of the United States
> Iraq Survey group released this Fall. You really do not pay attention
> do you?

No, FRED, I don't know what claim you are asking me about. I think it got
clipped out somewhere along the line. I didn't ask you what the Duelfer
report was. I'm not inclined to spend much more time on this thread anyway.
Nobody is convincing anybody of anything here.

>
>
> >
> > > > My God Fred, if this stuff concerns you then I can only imagine how
many
> > > > blood vessels you would have popped had you lived back during WW2.
> > There is
> > > > a war going on, ya know?
> > >
> > > Got any idea how many American GIs were prosecuted for violating the
> > > Laws of War in WWII? Our leaders back then were serious about moral
> > > responsibility and did not so easily abandon the rule of law.
> >
> > But if you lived back then you'd be calling FDR a liar and war criminal.
>
> Again, I have not authorized you to represent my views.

Lighten up, Francis.

> >
>
> It was the best way to convince the Congress, yes. Bush also made
> it clear that Iraq could avoid a military conflict through declaration,
> inspection and disarmament. According the people responsible for
> that, Iraq complied.
>
Wrong. Saddam was not cooperative in any way shape or form. Libya was
cooperative. The difference was day and night. You are unfortunately being
duped into a false sense of security by Saddam and you don't even know it.
I'm to have characterized you so because I know it annoys you, but I calls
'em as I sees 'em.

It's probably best you reply on the politics groups you had this thread
crosslinked with, and we'll leave these poor woodworking people alone
already as you suggested on the other thread.

dwhite