Getbig.com: American Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure
Getbig Main Boards => General Topics => Topic started by: Colossus_500 on October 19, 2006, 12:44:38 PM
-
From CNN
"Almost 2,800 Americans have been killed so far in Iraq and one of the most dangerous insurgent opponents is the sniper. CNN has obtained graphic video from the Islamic Army of Iraq, one of the most active insurgent organizations in Iraq, showing its sniper teams targeting U.S. troops. The Islamist Army says it wants talks with the United States and some Islamist Internet postings call for a P.R. campaign aimed at influencing the American public. The video is disturbing to watch but CNN believes the story, shocking as it is, needs to be told."
If this isn't active propaganda or deliberate promotion in hopes of failure in Iraq, I don't know what is. >:(
Keep up the good work, 240. You're doing a great job of assisting CNN in their mission of getting "the message" out. ::)
-
From CNN
"Almost 2,800 Americans have been killed so far in Iraq and one of the most dangerous insurgent opponents is the sniper. CNN has obtained graphic video from the Islamic Army of Iraq, one of the most active insurgent organizations in Iraq, showing its sniper teams targeting U.S. troops. The Islamist Army says it wants talks with the United States and some Islamist Internet postings call for a P.R. campaign aimed at influencing the American public. The video is disturbing to watch but CNN believes the story, shocking as it is, needs to be told."
If this isn't active propaganda or deliberate promotion in hopes of failure in Iraq, I don't know what is. >:(
Keep up the good work, 240. You're doing a great job of assisting CNN in their mission of getting "the message" out. ::)
IT's the truth. That's all. Not like the WMD's which weren't the truth.
Fact is, this whole Iraq war crap is a gigantic example of gross imcompetence by the BUSH administration and IF someone doesn't do something about it, like the american public, more US soldiers will die.
ARE YOU OK with that C-500? More US soldiers dying or would you rather be spoon fed "Everything is going well reports from Iraq"?
-
The truth is propaganda? ::)
-
If this isn't active propaganda or deliberate promotion in hopes of failure in Iraq, I don't know what is. >:(
Keep up the good work, 240. You're doing a great job of assisting CNN in their mission of getting "the message" out. ::)
what the hell did I do?
Because I read CNN among the ten new pages I visit daily?
What the hell, man?
That article was up yesterday, and while I posted 4 stories about current events, I didn't toucvh that one.
You know, it's ignorant MFers like yourself who are the problem. You don't know facts, you just blindly throw shit out there, making baseless accusations. Get educated and stop embarassing yourself.
-
Promoting failure?
newsflash guys..Bush has failed.
and if you say bush has not failed ..well exactly how bad need it be for you to admit faliure on his part?
notice i didn't say we have failed..
-
Yeah why pay attention to the Truth? It's all good sitting in 5000 miles away talking about how justified we are doing what we are doing while we sit safe in our homes..............while US soldiers get killed everyday in a war they should have never been in and the 100,000 diplaced Iraqis have to find shelter and live in constant threat of dying........... When we are supposidly now, there for democracy and the majority of peop;le there think they'd be better off if the US just left.... So it's only democracy when it's convienient ofr us not Iraq huh?
Safe sound and secure 5000 miles away and complaining about the God dam TRUTH!
It's all good isn't C-500?
-
what the hell did I do?
Because I read CNN among the ten new pages I visit daily?
What the hell, man?
That article was up yesterday, and while I posted 4 stories about current events, I didn't toucvh that one.
You know, it's ignorant MFers like yourself who are the problem. You don't know facts, you just blindly throw shit out there, making baseless accusations. Get educated and stop embarassing yourself.
They don't blindly throw out there they:
they JUST CHOOSE TO STAY BLIND
-
Fact is, this whole Iraq war crap is a gigantic example of gross imcompetence by the BUSH administration and IF someone doesn't do something about it, like the american public, more US soldiers will die.
More US soldiers dying or would you rather be spoon fed "Everything is going well reports from Iraq"?
well said
-
You know, it's ignorant MFers like yourself who are the problem. You don't know facts, you just blindly throw shit out there, making baseless accusations. Get educated and stop embarassing yourself.
First of all, you can slow your roll with the name calling, bro. Because you post articles all day and provide links to prove your theory does not, I repeat, does NOT mean I don't know facts (or any other person that posts information conflicting to your belief). I won't even entertain your last sentence I quote in this reply. If it upset you this much, then there's something behind what I'm saying, else you wouldn't come at me with the 3rd grade name-calling. All I'm saying is that you perpetuate what we hear in the mainstream media on this site. Just because you take the time to watch MSNBC, Fox, and CNN doesn't give you to the right to have claim to all the facts. All you have claim to is what's given to you by these media
IT's the truth. That's all. Not like the WMD's which weren't the truth.
Fact is, this whole Iraq war crap is a gigantic example of gross imcompetence by the BUSH administration and IF someone doesn't do something about it, like the american public, more US soldiers will die.
ARE YOU OK with that C-500? More US soldiers dying or would you rather be spoon fed "Everything is going well reports from Iraq"?
Bro, I don't like the fact that soldiers are dying either. Believe me, I don't. But it's war. Some might say that we went there for the wrong reason, but I feel like this is one of those situations like when you pull up a old, wet cardboard in the garage, and you see a ton of roaches or ants scatter. You don't just put the cardboard back down, do you? You clean up the mess. I truly feel like this is where we're at. Plus, I think we've fallen victim of hearing an overload of information that we REALLY don't know is true or not that we've begun to believe it. You know, OJ actually thought he was innocent. I'm saying the mess that's put out in the media now is of the same mold. Just my take, bro. Glad you didn't resort to the 3rd grade stuff. I appreciate that.
-
they JUST CHOOSE TO STAY BLIND
couldn't i say the same for those of your thought pattern? ???
-
Promoting failure?
newsflash guys..Bush has failed.
and if you say bush has not failed ..well exactly how bad need it be for you to admit faliure on his part?
notice i didn't say we have failed..
Are you kidding? Have you seen the posts of some of these pro Bush guys?
Bush could walk into a Macy's and start blowing small children away with an Uzi and they still wouldn't say he was wrong.
Not much more pathetic than those that stick to the party line no matter what.
-
couldn't i say the same for those of your thought pattern? ???
What am i being blind too?
The senseless death?
The 800 billion in debt?
The thousands of maimed war veterens?
The wide spread instability?
The incompetence by the BUSH administration?
The dramatic increase in terrorism in the region?
The Lie of the WMD's?
the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis that would be living if it weren't for us right now.
Or am i being blind to the overall picture of our mission there?
Because I am being blind to that overall picture in the face of it's UNDENIABLE FAILURE caused by incompetence and neo-con zealotry
-
First of all, you can slow your roll with the name calling, bro. Because you post articles all day and provide links to prove your theory does not, I repeat, does NOT mean I don't know facts (or any other person that posts information conflicting to your belief). I won't even entertain your last sentence I quote in this reply. If it upset you this much, then there's something behind what I'm saying, else you wouldn't come at me with the 3rd grade name-calling. All I'm saying is that you perpetuate what we hear in the mainstream media on this site. Just because you take the time to watch MSNBC, Fox, and CNN doesn't give you to the right to have claim to all the facts. All you have claim to is what's given to you by these media
Bro, I don't like the fact that soldiers are dying either. Believe me, I don't. But it's war. Some might say that we went there for the wrong reason, but I feel like this is one of those situations like when you pull up a old, wet cardboard in the garage, and you see a ton of roaches or ants scatter. You don't just put the cardboard back down, do you? You clean up the mess. I truly feel like this is where we're at. Plus, I think we've fallen victim of hearing an overload of information that we REALLY don't know is true or not that we've begun to believe it. You know, OJ actually thought he was innocent. I'm saying the mess that's put out in the media now is of the same mold. Just my take, bro. Glad you didn't resort to the 3rd grade stuff. I appreciate that.
Well said. I agree.
I'm very worried about my two buddies in Iraq, but they are making the ultimate sacrifice for their country by risking their lives to serve while people like me enjoy a leisurely life at home (earthquakes and power outages aside).
There are always casualties in war. I think many Bush-haters are using casualties to try and support their claim that we shouldn't have invaded. But whether we have enough boots on the ground and how long we should stay are really different issues from whether we should have invaded.
We have short memories. I remember how the military ordered well over ten thousand body bags during Desert Storm, anticipating some major causalities.
I hope we come up with an exit strategy soon.
-
First of all, you can slow your roll with the name calling, bro. Because you post articles all day and provide links to prove your theory does not, I repeat, does NOT mean I don't know facts (or any other person that posts information conflicting to your belief). I won't even entertain your last sentence I quote in this reply. If it upset you this much, then there's something behind what I'm saying, else you wouldn't come at me with the 3rd grade name-calling. All I'm saying is that you perpetuate what we hear in the mainstream media on this site. Just because you take the time to watch MSNBC, Fox, and CNN doesn't give you to the right to have claim to all the facts. All you have claim to is what's given to you by these media
Ok, sorry about the name calling. I was pissed. I passed up that article yesterday, never clicking on it, cause it sickened me to my stomach.
As far as the media goes, I easily visit ten sites a day on my own, including euro and australian websites, to see how news is presented differently on each. I also visit message boards on politics and 911, and see many stories we're not fed here. I recognize trends as a result, and I have a pretty fair grasp of what's going on in the world.
I post links from world media here and what happens? I hear "yeah, with this liberal news source i've never heard of and therefore refuse to click on " echoes from about five people here. So, I find the same news on FOX or CNN (albeit a day or two later), and this time they go from being a blind critic to a blind accepter of it as gospel. So I don't mean the namecalling - but you called me out by name for it after i intentionally avoided that sniper link, which my stomach wouldn't let me open. Like man, iraq makes me sick.
-
Bro, I don't like the fact that soldiers are dying either. Believe me, I don't. But it's war. Some might say that we went there for the wrong reason, but I feel like this is one of those situations like when you pull up a old, wet cardboard in the garage, and you see a ton of roaches or ants scatter. You don't just put the cardboard back down, do you? You clean up the mess. I truly feel like this is where we're at. Plus, I think we've fallen victim of hearing an overload of information that we REALLY don't know is true or not that we've begun to believe it. You know, OJ actually thought he was innocent. I'm saying the mess that's put out in the media now is of the same mold. Just my take, bro. Glad you didn't resort to the 3rd grade stuff. I appreciate that.
Just so you know, if I get heated at a post of yours, please don't take my passion for the subject personally in regards to any jabs direct or indirect towards you as i don't mean any disrespect to you as a person. I'm sure that if we were in person, I'd hope to be firends even though i may strongly disagree with your views. I have many friends with similar views as yours but we don't confuse the 2 issues even in heated debates. Sometimes i tend to get a little aggressive so I apologize.
that being said,
I'm not sure i follow you card board analogy. If this were happening in Afghanistan, A war i feel was just, I'd still want the truth and any and all unfiltered news from it i could get.
-
I'm not sure i follow you card board analogy. If this were happening in Afghanistan, A war i feel was just, I'd still want the truth and any and all unfiltered news from it i could get.
Speaking of - I just read today that the northern alliance had signed an agreement with an Argentine oil pipeline company right before 9/11. The US company unocal was beat out on price and the deal was done. Our invasion of course nullified this contract. Monster motive to find any reason to invade ;)
-
Well said. I agree.
I'm very worried about my two buddies in Iraq, but they are making the ultimate sacrifice for their country by risking their lives to serve while people like me enjoy a leisurely life at home (earthquakes and power outages aside).
There are always casualties in war. I think many Bush-haters are using casualties to try and support their claim that we shouldn't have invaded. But whether we have enough boots on the ground and how long we should stay are really different issues from whether we should have invaded.
We have short memories. I remember how the military ordered well over ten thousand body bags during Desert Storm, anticipating some major causalities.
I hope we come up with an exit strategy soon.
Agreed. I'd like to hear more talk about an exit strategy. If it's 10 years, so be it. But let's come up with a plan. I still wish that Pres. Bush had allowed Rumsfeld to resign, as I feel he is a good portion of the problem we're in now. It also would have been nice if President Bush has chosen a different Vice President as well.
-
Agreed. I'd like to hear more talk about an exit strategy. If it's 10 years, so be it. But let's come up with a plan. I still wish that Pres. Bush had allowed Rumsfeld to resign, as I feel he is a good portion of the problem we're in now. It also would have been nice if President Bush has chosen a different Vice President as well.
Now you're talking! :)
However, i hope it's not 10 years.... I wish it were like no more than 18 months to 24 months... Know any Jeannies?
-
240, I wouldn't even address this COLOSSAL BULLSHIT... Now you're aiding the Iraqi insurgency ::) WHAT A COMPLETE FUCKTARD THING TO SAY...
-
Just so you know, if I get heated at a post of yours, please don't take my passion for the subject personally in regards to any jabs direct or indirect towards you as i don't mean any disrespect to you as a person. I'm sure that if we were in person, I'd hope to be firends even though i may strongly disagree with your views. I have many friends with similar views as yours but we don't confuse the 2 issues even in heated debates. Sometimes i tend to get a little aggressive so I apologize.
that being said,
I'm not sure i follow you card board analogy. If this were happening in Afghanistan, A war i feel was just, I'd still want the truth and any and all unfiltered news from it i could get.
No apologies necessary, OzmO. These are issues that should be debated. And rest assure, were we to be discussing this in person, I wouldn't take this personal. I understand the passion behind what you say. We just happen to disagree.
In my analogy of the cardboard, I'm trying to articulate the fact that we did not know what was "under the covers" in Iraq when we got over there. But once we were actually there, and saw that there was a mess (the ants/roaches), we can't just very well leave the situation as it was.
-
Agreed. I'd like to hear more talk about an exit strategy. If it's 10 years, so be it. But let's come up with a plan. I still wish that Pres. Bush had allowed Rumsfeld to resign, as I feel he is a good portion of the problem we're in now. It also would have been nice if President Bush has chosen a different Vice President as well.
Serious question, what good does talking about a 10 year exit strategy do?
Do you have any idea how much 10 years over there will cost, both in terms of lives and money?
-
Serious question, what good does talking about a 10 year exit strategy do?
Do you have any idea how much 10 years over there will cost, both in terms of lives and money?
At 2.6 billion a week that would cost: $1,352,000,000,000
At 5 deaths per day that would be: 18,000+ deaths
-
Serious question, what good does talking about a 10 year exit strategy do?
Do you have any idea how much 10 years over there will cost, both in terms of lives and money?
I guess these fucking morons don't care that the debt will be on the backs of the young generation.
We could stay there 10 years, spend billions more to divide that country into 3 seperatate nations and lose thousands of more soliders. On the other hand, we could get the fuck out and now and let them solve their own problems, and only then can we truly focus on the real 'war on terror'.
It's really hard to believe how some people could be so entrenched in one political pit. ???
-
I guess these fucking morons don't care that the debt will be on the backs of the young generation.
We could stay there 10 years, spend billions more to divide that country into 3 seperatate nations and lose thousands of more soliders. On the other hand, we could get the f**k out and now and let them solve their own problems, and only then can we truly focus on the real 'war on terror'.
It's really hard to believe how some people could be so entrenched in one political pit. ???
It's funny how politics has this effect on people. It must be because for some your political point of view is akin to their religious point of view.
I used the analogy in another thread that watching people defend Bush is like watching a mother swear up and down that her son is a good person and that he isn't a criminal even though he's been arrested 15 times and spent 6 years in prison.
-
It's funny how politics has this effect on people. It must be because for some your political point of view is akin to their religious point of view.
I used the analogy in another thread that watching people defend Bush is like watching a mother swear up and down that her son is a good person and that he isn't a criminal even though he's been arrested 15 times and spent 6 years in prison.
Yeah, oddly enough it seems that most die hard religous people are republicans. I don't how true that is, but it just seems that way to me.
-
Yeah, oddly enough it seems that most die hard religous people are republicans. I don't how true that is, but it just seems that way to me.
Doesn't seem that way to me. My church is full of liberals. I debate them often. :)
-
Doesn't seem that way to me. My church is full of liberals. I debate them often. :)
Well you also live in Hawaii ;D
-
Doesn't seem that way to me. My church is full of liberals. I debate them often. :)
Same here! Major assumptions being made here, folks. You know, God loves Democrats too! ;) We need to realize that these issues go deeper than the party lines.
-
Well you also live in Hawaii ;D
True, true. ;D
-
Same here! Major assumptions being made here, folks. You know, God loves Democrats too! ;) We need to realize that these issues go deeper than the party lines.
Absolutely.
-
Same here! Major assumptions being made here, folks. You know, God loves Democrats too! ;) We need to realize that these issues go deeper than the party lines.
I don't know about that. Talking about a 10 year exit strategy sounds an awful lot like party line garbage.
-
I don't know about that. Talking about a 10 year exit strategy sounds an awful lot like party line garbage.
huh? ???
-
huh? ???
Nevermind.
-
This is our Vietnam, folks.
There will always be the squares supporting the company line no matter how silly it is. I jsut never thought I'd become one of those damn hippies!
-
Not like the WMD's which weren't the truth.
Still can't accept the fact we found some can you?
-
Still can't accept the fact we found some can you?
I agree, you found some, but what you found was insignificant, many years old and tactically useless. It wasn't what your fellow Americans were supposed to die for, not what the sadness of 2700+ mothers are feeling, the thousands of maimed soldiers who have to live with out a limb or 2 are suffering for.
No, it was a outright scam from the BUSH administration which you still haven't accepted. Probably becuase it hasn't hit close enough to home, or if it has you've pawned this truth off as more lib rhetoric as you blanket yourself in Rush's voice.
-
Still can't accept the fact we found some can you?
we didn't ::) You still can't stop lying...
Even though it's been pointed out to you half a fucking dozen times, you still spred the lies.
By Charles J. Hanley, AP Special Correspondent | August 6, 2006
Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.
People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.
The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.
Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents -- up from 36 percent last year -- said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.
"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.
"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.
Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.
But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.
"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."
Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra's announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press "didn't give the story the play it deserved." But in some quarters it was headlined.Continued...
"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book -- at best uncorroborated hearsay -- claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.
But Kull, Massing and others see an influence on opinion that's more sustained than the odd headline.
"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."
Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.
The facts are that Iraq -- after a four-year hiatus in cooperating with inspections -- acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. The inspectors said they could wrap up their work within months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.
As recently as May 27, Bush told West Point graduates, "When the United Nations Security Council gave him one final chance to disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to take that final opportunity."
"Which isn't true," observed Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar of presidential rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania. But "it doesn't surprise me when presidents reconstruct reality to make their policies defensible." This president may even have convinced himself it's true, she said.
Americans have heard it. A poll by Kull's WorldPublicOpinion.org found that seven in 10 Americans perceive the administration as still saying Iraq had a WMD program. Combine that rhetoric with simplistic headlines about WMD "finds," and people "assume the issue is still in play," Kull said.
"For some it almost becomes independent of reality and becomes very partisan." The WMD believers are heavily Republican, polls show.
Beyond partisanship, however, people may also feel a need to believe in WMD, the analysts say.
"As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with," said the Harris Poll's David Krane.
Charles Duelfer, the lead U.S. inspector who announced the negative WMD findings two years ago, has watched uncertainly as TV sound bites, bloggers and politicians try to chip away at "the best factual account," his group's densely detailed, 1,000-page final report.
"It is easy to see what is accepted as truth rapidly morph from one representation to another," he said in an e-mail. "It would be a shame if one effect of the power of the Internet was to undermine any commonly agreed set of facts."
The creative "morphing" goes on.
As Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas battled in Lebanon on July 21, a Fox News segment suggested, with no evidence, yet another destination for the supposed doomsday arms.
"ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH'S HANDS?" asked the headline, lingering for long minutes on TV screens in a million American homes.
-
But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.
Is your prized pentagon lying Mr. I?
Are they the liberal pentagon now?
-
Still can't accept the fact we found some can you?
Moron.
-
Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.
So is Condi a liberal too?
-
we didn't ::) You still can't stop lying...
Even though it's been pointed out to you half a fucking dozen times, you still spred the lies.
By Charles J. Hanley, AP Special Correspondent | August 6, 2006
Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.
People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.
The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.
Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents -- up from 36 percent last year -- said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.
"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.
"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.
Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.
But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.
"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."
Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra's announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press "didn't give the story the play it deserved." But in some quarters it was headlined.Continued...
"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book -- at best uncorroborated hearsay -- claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.
But Kull, Massing and others see an influence on opinion that's more sustained than the odd headline.
"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."
Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.
The facts are that Iraq -- after a four-year hiatus in cooperating with inspections -- acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. The inspectors said they could wrap up their work within months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.
As recently as May 27, Bush told West Point graduates, "When the United Nations Security Council gave him one final chance to disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to take that final opportunity."
"Which isn't true," observed Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar of presidential rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania. But "it doesn't surprise me when presidents reconstruct reality to make their policies defensible." This president may even have convinced himself it's true, she said.
Americans have heard it. A poll by Kull's WorldPublicOpinion.org found that seven in 10 Americans perceive the administration as still saying Iraq had a WMD program. Combine that rhetoric with simplistic headlines about WMD "finds," and people "assume the issue is still in play," Kull said.
"For some it almost becomes independent of reality and becomes very partisan." The WMD believers are heavily Republican, polls show.
Beyond partisanship, however, people may also feel a need to believe in WMD, the analysts say.
"As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with," said the Harris Poll's David Krane.
Charles Duelfer, the lead U.S. inspector who announced the negative WMD findings two years ago, has watched uncertainly as TV sound bites, bloggers and politicians try to chip away at "the best factual account," his group's densely detailed, 1,000-page final report.
"It is easy to see what is accepted as truth rapidly morph from one representation to another," he said in an e-mail. "It would be a shame if one effect of the power of the Internet was to undermine any commonly agreed set of facts."
The creative "morphing" goes on.
As Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas battled in Lebanon on July 21, a Fox News segment suggested, with no evidence, yet another destination for the supposed doomsday arms.
"ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH'S HANDS?" asked the headline, lingering for long minutes on TV screens in a million American homes.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/22/101414.shtml?s=ic
-
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/22/101414.shtml?s=ic
So this republican Senator, who obviously has a politcal agenda:
Has the expertise to determine the "threat" of these 500 chemical munitions more so than the PENTAGON who's in the weapon assesment business?
And he supercedes Miss COndi RIce in making government statements?
Yes, it must be invasion of the Liberal body snatchers! HAHAHAHAHAH
-
I think you have been Liberally PWNED HERE.
-
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/22/101414.shtml?s=ic
hahahahaha... I provide an AP story and you toss Newsmax at me ::)
-
Intenseone, check this out... We've all heard how Bush weighed every single option and tired every diplomatic avenue before deciding to send our men to war to die. Many times, I'm sure we agree that is true. He's saying it now with Iran... Laura Bush said the following at the RNC 2004 convention:
No American president ever wants to go to war. Abraham Lincoln didn't want to go to war, but he knew saving the union required it. Franklin Roosevelt didn't want to go to war, but he knew defeating tyranny demanded it. And my husband didn't want to go to war, but he knew the safety and security of America and the world depended on it.
I remember some very quiet nights at the dinner table. George was weighing grim scenarios and ominous intelligence about potentially even more devastating attacks. I listened many nights as George talked with foreign leaders on the phone, or in our living room, or at our ranch in Crawford.
I remember an intense weekend at Camp David. George and Prime Minister Tony Blair were discussing the threat from Saddam Hussein. And I remember sitting in the window of the White House, watching as my husband walked on the lawn below. I knew he was wrestling with these agonizing decisions that would have such profound consequence for so many lives and for the future of our world.
And I was there when my husband had to decide. Once again, as in our parents' generation, America had to make the tough choices, the hard decisions, and lead the world toward greater security and freedom.
Now, weigh the above with this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1079769,00.html
-
Beserker, you should remove it,
ALL, Mr. I will do is challange the web site calling it "liberal"
Poor thing, now he has to call the pentagon liberal. I wonder what the joint chiefs would say to that?
-
Beserker, you should remove it,
ALL, Mr. I will do is challange the web site calling it "liberal"
Poor thing, now he has to call the pentagon liberal. I wonder what the joint chiefs would say to that?
The Guardian :-\ I think he's conflusterfused... Starting to maybe realise Rush hasn't been telling him everything ;D
-
Intensguy, how's these words sit with you?
Feb. 24, 2001
, while meeting at Cairo's Ittihadiya Palace with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.
Asked about the sanctions placed on Iraq, which were then under review at the Security Council, Powell said the measures were working. In fact, he added, "(Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."--Colin Powell
-
D'OH!
"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."--Condoleezza Rice
CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer, July 29, 2001
-
This is where Intenseone refuses to address any of these points and hopes the whole thread disappears to pg 2 asap. We've been here and done this same argument before...
-
Most important thing to realize is that it takes quite a while to put the infrastructure for war into place. We did it for Iraq and we did it for Afghanistan.
Can anyone - Dem or Repub or otherwise - tell me why we were moving war infrastructure into place to invade Afghanistan BEFORE 911?
Anyone?
-
Most important thing to realize is that it takes quite a while to put the infrastructure for war into place. We did it for Iraq and we did it for Afghanistan.
Can anyone - Dem or Repub or otherwise - tell me why we were moving war infrastructure into place to invade Afghanistan BEFORE 911?
Anyone?
you are doing it again
-
Promoting failure?
newsflash guys..Bush has failed.
and if you say bush has not failed ..well exactly how bad need it be for you to admit faliure on his part?
notice i didn't say we have failed..
Really since when was reporting the truth propaganda anyways?
On the other hand let's turn on Foxand see what they are spinning...hmmmmm
-
bush needs to get rid of mcnamera, ooops, i mean rumsfeld and let the someone in charge who will let the military do what it is trained to do.
-
we didn't ::) You still can't stop lying...
Even though it's been pointed out to you half a fucking dozen times, you still spred the lies.
By Charles J. Hanley, AP Special Correspondent | August 6, 2006
Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.
People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.
The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.
Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents -- up from 36 percent last year -- said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.
"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.
"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.
Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.
But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.
"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."
Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra's announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press "didn't give the story the play it deserved." But in some quarters it was headlined.Continued...
"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book -- at best uncorroborated hearsay -- claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.
But Kull, Massing and others see an influence on opinion that's more sustained than the odd headline.
"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."
Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.
The facts are that Iraq -- after a four-year hiatus in cooperating with inspections -- acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. The inspectors said they could wrap up their work within months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.
As recently as May 27, Bush told West Point graduates, "When the United Nations Security Council gave him one final chance to disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to take that final opportunity."
"Which isn't true," observed Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar of presidential rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania. But "it doesn't surprise me when presidents reconstruct reality to make their policies defensible." This president may even have convinced himself it's true, she said.
Americans have heard it. A poll by Kull's WorldPublicOpinion.org found that seven in 10 Americans perceive the administration as still saying Iraq had a WMD program. Combine that rhetoric with simplistic headlines about WMD "finds," and people "assume the issue is still in play," Kull said.
"For some it almost becomes independent of reality and becomes very partisan." The WMD believers are heavily Republican, polls show.
Beyond partisanship, however, people may also feel a need to believe in WMD, the analysts say.
"As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with," said the Harris Poll's David Krane.
Charles Duelfer, the lead U.S. inspector who announced the negative WMD findings two years ago, has watched uncertainly as TV sound bites, bloggers and politicians try to chip away at "the best factual account," his group's densely detailed, 1,000-page final report.
"It is easy to see what is accepted as truth rapidly morph from one representation to another," he said in an e-mail. "It would be a shame if one effect of the power of the Internet was to undermine any commonly agreed set of facts."
The creative "morphing" goes on.
As Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas battled in Lebanon on July 21, a Fox News segment suggested, with no evidence, yet another destination for the supposed doomsday arms.
"ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH'S HANDS?" asked the headline, lingering for long minutes on TV screens in a million American homes.
Assclown, I think you missed the point, I know we didn't find a shitload, but we did find some no matter how insignificant, Saddam said he didn't have any and we found 500 and we had not have givin him 2 years and 17 freaking resolutions we would have had what we were looking for......but nooooo your buddies at the UN wanted to keep giving him breaks.....just enough breaks to move his weapons out of the country and destroy most of what he had left, but you being a Saddam sympathizer (and if your not, you sure sound like one) can't see that, and if at the very least, we stopped the genocide, being the human rights Liberal you are, you should be happy..............and if I hear one more asshole say Iraq was better off before we got Saddam, I'm going to freaking throw up.........how would you feel if your life was at risk everytime you didn't comply with his orders!
-
Assclown, I think you missed the point, I know we didn't find a shitload, but we did find some no matter how insignificant, ::) ::) Saddam said he didn't have any and we found 500 and we had not have givin him 2 years and 17 freaking resolutions we would have had what we were looking for......but nooooo your buddies at the UN wanted to keep giving him breaks.....just enough breaks to move his weapons out of the country and destroy most of what he had left, but you being a Saddam sympathizer (and if your not, you sure sound like one) can't see that, and if at the very least, we stopped the genocide, being the human rights Liberal you are, you should be happy..............and if I hear one more asshole say Iraq was better off before we got Saddam, I'm going to freaking throw up.........how would you feel if your life was at risk everytime you didn't comply with his orders!
OMG... I think YOU missed the point... "BIGTIME..."
-
Hey intguy, if you're finished puking now, do you happen to recall all that mushroom cloud crap/yellow cake crap from the admin??? The news of finding orphan munitions was blown out of wack and even you tried to make it out to be WAY more than it actually was. While other were talking about seriously dangerous weapons programs not being found, you had no problem poping up and saying, yes they were... So real nice try on spinning it but here again you end up owned by your own words.
-
Hey intguy, if you're finished puking now, do you happen to recall all that mushroom cloud crap/yellow cake crap from the admin??? The news of finding orphan munitions was blown out of wack and even you tried to make it out to be WAY more than it actually was. While other were talking about seriously dangerous weapons programs not being found, you had no problem poping up and saying, yes they were... So real nice try on spinning it but here again you end up owned by your own words.
translation: YADDA YADDA YADDA.
hth. :)
-
If we are willing to lose 3k men for a few stockpiled bunkers of shit munitions from 1991, we should CERTAINLY be willing to liquidate N. Korea for actually blowing up nukes and threatening us with them.
Right?
-
I realize that you haven't commented on any of the other stuff I asked you of in this thread and I don't expect you to. I wouldn't either if I were a dittohead... But please, I sure would like if you'd give this one your best effort and try to come up with some kind of response:
On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
U.S. officials asserted that Iraq had biological weapons factories in trailers, even after a Pentagon mission found them unsuited for that role. (By Pfc. Joshua Hutcheson Via Associated Press)
From 'Biological Laboratories' to Harmless Trailers
Two Iraqi trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops became a center-piece of U.S. claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. But shortly after the fall of Baghdad, an internal report showed the trailers had nothing to do with banned weapons.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.
The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it.
None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. Their accounts were verified by other current and former government officials knowledgeable about the mission. The contents of the final report, "Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers," remain classified. But interviews reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons. Those interviewed took care not to discuss the classified portions of their work.
"There was no connection to anything biological," said one expert who studied the trailers. Another recalled an epithet that came to be associated with the trailers: "the biggest sand toilets in the world."
Primary Piece of Evidence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The story of the technical team and its reports adds a new dimension to the debate over the U.S. government's handling of intelligence related to banned Iraqi weapons programs. The trailers -- along with aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq for what was claimed to be a nuclear weapons program -- were primary pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration before the war to support its contention that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction.
Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied allegations that intelligence was hyped or manipulated in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But officials familiar with the technical team's reports are questioning anew whether intelligence agencies played down or dismissed postwar evidence that contradicted the administration's public views about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Last year, a presidential commission on intelligence failures criticized U.S. spy agencies for discounting evidence that contradicted the official line about banned weapons in Iraq, both before and after the invasion.
Spokesmen for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the specific findings of the technical report because it remains classified. A spokesman for the DIA asserted that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The survey group's final report in September 2004 -- 15 months after the technical report was written -- said the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were "almost certainly intended" for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.
"Whether the information was offered to others in the political realm I cannot say," said the DIA official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888.html
-
translation: YADDA YADDA YADDA.
hth. :)
Did you really want to pick another fight? I'm kind of tired of it because most of our debates are, well, pretty much pointless... I thought you were being good today... How about giving it a rest for a bit. I'm in if you are :-* You already got your way with me, I'm not posting anything about Israel ever again... I know there's not much point to it... So can't you walk away with a partial win here or are you in it for the death blow?
-
What are your thoughts of this article?
Iraq was a worthy mistake
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 20, 2006
There's a strict taboo in the column-writing business against recycling ideas. So let me start with something fresh.
The Iraq war was a mistake.
I know, I know. But I've never said it before. And I don't enjoy saying it now. I'm sure that to the antiwar crowd this is too little, too late, and that's fine because I'm not joining their ranks anyway.
In the dumbed-down debate we're having, there are only two sides: pro-war and antiwar. This is silly. First, very few folks who favored the Iraq invasion are abstractly pro-war. Second, antiwar types aren't really pacifists. They favor military intervention when it comes to stopping genocide in Darfur or starvation in Somalia or doing whatever it was that President Clinton did in Haiti. In other words, their objection isn't to war per se; it's to wars that advance U.S. interests (or, allegedly, President Bush's or Israel's or ExxonMobil's interests). I must confess, one of the things that made me reluctant to conclude that the Iraq war was a mistake was my distaste for the shabbiness of the arguments on the antiwar side.
But truth is truth. And the Iraq war was a mistake by the most obvious criteria: If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq - at least not the way we did. I do think that Congress (including Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Jay Rockefeller and John Murtha) was right to vote for the war given what was known - or what was believed to have been known - in 2003. The claims from some former pro-war Dems that they were lied to strike me as nothing more than cowardly buck-passing.
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction is a side issue. The WMD fiasco was a global intelligence failure, though calling Saddam Hussein's bluff after 9/11 was the right thing to do. Washington's more important intelligence failure lay in underestimating what would be required to rebuild and restore post-Hussein Iraq. The White House did not anticipate a low-intensity civil war in Iraq, never planned for it and would not have deemed it in the U.S. interest to pay this high a price in prestige, treasure and, of course, lives.
According to the goofy parameters of the current debate, I'm now supposed to call for withdrawing from Iraq. If it was a mistake to go in, we should get out, some argue. But this is unpersuasive. A doctor will warn that if you see a man stabbed in the chest, you shouldn't rush to pull the knife out. We are in Iraq for good reasons and for reasons that were well-intentioned but wrong. But we are there.
Those who say it's not the central front in the war on terror are in a worse state of denial than they think Bush is in. Of course it's the central front. That it has become so is a valid criticism of Bush, but it's also strong reason for seeing things through. If we pull out precipitously, jihadism will open a franchise in Iraq and gain steam around the world, and the U.S. will be weakened.
Bush's critics claim that democracy promotion was an afterthought, a convenient rebranding of a war gone sour. That's unfair, but even if true, it wouldn't mean liberty isn't at stake. It wouldn't mean that promoting a liberal society in the heart of the Arab and Muslim world wouldn't be in our interest and consistent with our ideals. In war, you sometimes end up having to defend ground you wouldn't have chosen with perfect knowledge beforehand. That's us in Iraq.
According to the conventional script, if I'm not saying "bug out" of Iraq, I'm supposed to say "stay the course." But there's a third option, and, funnily enough, I found it in an old column of mine. (Journalistic taboos be damned!) We should ask the Iraqis to vote on whether U.S. troops should stay.
Polling suggests that they want us to go. But polling absent consequences is a form of protest. With accountability, minds may change and appreciation for the U.S. presence might grow.
If Iraqis voted "stay," we'd have a mandate to do what's necessary to win, and our ideals would be reaffirmed. If they voted "go," our values would also be reaffirmed, and we could leave with honor. And pretty much everyone would have to accept democracy as the only legitimate expression of national will.
Finishing the job is better than leaving a mess. And if we can finish the job, the war won't be remembered as a mistake.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
-
What are your thoughts of this article?
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 20, 2006
There's a strict taboo in the column-writing business against recycling ideas. So let me start with something fresh.
The Iraq war was a mistake.
No shit, really? How many dead Americans "after we won the iraq war" did it take him to figure that out?
What are your thoughts of this article?
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 20, 2006
In the dumbed-down debate we're having, there are only two sides: pro-war and antiwar. This is silly. First, very few folks who favored the Iraq invasion are abstractly pro-war. Second, antiwar types aren't really pacifists. They favor military intervention when it comes to stopping genocide in Darfur or starvation in Somalia or doing whatever it was that President Clinton did in Haiti. In other words, their objection isn't to war per se; it's to wars that advance U.S. interests (or, allegedly, President Bush's or Israel's or ExxonMobil's interests). I must confess, one of the things that made me reluctant to conclude that the Iraq war was a mistake was my distaste for the shabbiness of the arguments on the antiwar side.
That's not exactly true either. Anti war types (such as me in the case of Iraq only) who cite the Darfur and Somalia do it to show a DOUBLE STANDARD when saying we went into iRaq to save them from Sadaam's tyranny.
Typical ploy at work in this paragraph as the author is trying to turn into a Dem vs Rep thing or a Clinton supporter thing. So basically he just stereotype all the anti war arguements by saying "anitwar types want wars that don't advance american interests" I bet he and Rush go to the same bath house. The only thing dumbed down is his lame attempt at identifying the anit war arguement.
What are your thoughts of this article?
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 20, 2006
But truth is truth. And the Iraq war was a mistake by the most obvious criteria: If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq - at least not the way we did. I do think that Congress (including Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Jay Rockefeller and John Murtha) was right to vote for the war given what was known - or what was believed to have been known - in 2003. The claims from some former pro-war Dems that they were lied to strike me as nothing more than cowardly buck-passing.
They were lied to becuase the government/intelleigence told them Iraq was a threat and it had WMD's. Not to mention both Colin Powell and Condi Rice made statements a year prior that Iraq was not a threat at all. So herre we go with the making it into a dem vs rep thing. GAY
What are your thoughts of this article?
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 20, 2006
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction is a side issue. The WMD fiasco was a global intelligence failure, though calling Saddam Hussein's bluff after 9/11 was the right thing to do. Washington's more important intelligence failure lay in underestimating what would be required to rebuild and restore post-Hussein Iraq. The White House did not anticipate a low-intensity civil war in Iraq, never planned for it and would not have deemed it in the U.S. interest to pay this high a price in prestige, treasure and, of course, lives.
It's one thing to overestimate the WMD's weapons cache and programs it's another thing to COMPLETELY get it wrong as they did. We been there for years and we've found essentially nothing.
What are your thoughts of this article?
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 20, 2006
According to the goofy parameters of the current debate, I'm now supposed to call for withdrawing from Iraq. If it was a mistake to go in, we should get out, some argue. But this is unpersuasive. A doctor will warn that if you see a man stabbed in the chest, you shouldn't rush to pull the knife out. We are in Iraq for good reasons and for reasons that were well-intentioned but wrong. But we are there.
Those who say it's not the central front in the war on terror are in a worse state of denial than they think Bush is in. Of course it's the central front. That it has become so is a valid criticism of Bush, but it's also strong reason for seeing things through. If we pull out precipitously, jihadism will open a franchise in Iraq and gain steam around the world, and the U.S. will be weakened.
If we win in Iraq the war on terrorism will go on just as it has. No doubt about it. That's why it is not a the central front. You could call it a central front if by winning in Iraq it would be a major blow to terrorism but it won't. we had our chance in tora bora to deal terrorism a damgin blow but fucked it up becuase Bush ahd a hard on for Sadaam.
Now we have to see it through, the mess we made and the mess we refuse to rtake care of with all our might but instead let mcnamera.... opps Rumfields screw up day by day.
And it's a Jihadist haven now anyway. I almost think it doesn't make a difference.
What are your thoughts of this article?
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 20, 2006
Bush's critics claim that democracy promotion was an afterthought, a convenient rebranding of a war gone sour. That's unfair, but even if true, it wouldn't mean liberty isn't at stake. It wouldn't mean that promoting a liberal society in the heart of the Arab and Muslim world wouldn't be in our interest and consistent with our ideals. In war, you sometimes end up having to defend ground you wouldn't have chosen with perfect knowledge beforehand. That's us in Iraq.
According to the conventional script, if I'm not saying "bug out" of Iraq, I'm supposed to say "stay the course." But there's a third option, and, funnily enough, I found it in an old column of mine. (Journalistic taboos be damned!) We should ask the Iraqis to vote on whether U.S. troops should stay.
Polling suggests that they want us to go. But polling absent consequences is a form of protest. With accountability, minds may change and appreciation for the U.S. presence might grow.
If Iraqis voted "stay," we'd have a mandate to do what's necessary to win, and our ideals would be reaffirmed. If they voted "go," our values would also be reaffirmed, and we could leave with honor. And pretty much everyone would have to accept democracy as the only legitimate expression of national will.
Finishing the job is better than leaving a mess. And if we can finish the job, the war won't be remembered as a mistake.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
It's unfair? It's the truth..... promoting democracy was a PR after thought. It's not about being unfair....it's about living in reality.
This guy is a real piece of work.
I've already stated what i think we should do: GET out right now.........or put another 100-200K troops in there and ruthlessly crush the insurgency. quickly.
-
In the dumbed-down debate we're having, there are only two sides: pro-war and antiwar. This is silly. First, very few folks who favored the Iraq invasion are abstractly pro-war. Second, antiwar types aren't really pacifists. They favor military intervention when it comes to stopping genocide in Darfur or starvation in Somalia or doing whatever it was that President Clinton did in Haiti. In other words, their objection isn't to war per se; it's to wars that advance U.S. interests (or, allegedly, President Bush's or Israel's or ExxonMobil's interests).
This is so true.
-
This is my preference:
1) Isolationist.
US puts our war $ and soldiers into agriculture here to get energy independent, and education to start kicking the world's ass on exports. Fuck the middle east - let them do their thing and we'll do ours. borders very tight. You will be imprisoned in shitty conditions if you try to sneak in. Economy adjusts to the lack of (near-) slave labor that illegals bring.
2) Human rights- Africa, etc, and only as part of a peacekeeping UN deal.
3) Wealth -
The last thing we should be doing is picking fights with half-threatening states with a lot of oil IE Iraq.
-
This is so true.
No it's a double standard that's being set.
I don't thnk we need to go into Darfur either. But given a choice, and given the responsibiblty of being the "world's police" go to Darfur first if the basis for the war is to "save" people.