White House Lied About Iraq Nuclear Programs 3201
An anonymous reader writes "This New York Times article reports that in 2002, the Bush Administration's assertions that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program were based on evidence that was doubted by the government's foremost nuclear security experts. Specifically, aluminum tubes most likely meant for small artillery rockets were interpreted by the administration as parts for uranium centrifuges." In a nutshell: while Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld were announcing to the American public that these tubes were slam-dunk evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions, they already knew that there was completely overwhelming evidence that the tubes were just for artillery rockets (as Iraq said) and that the tubes were totally unsuitable for use in centrifuges.
Whaaaa? (Score:5, Funny)
Bullshit.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet people still want to vote for W. I just don't get it.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Whaaaa? (Score:5, Funny)
> It has been proven many times: The American people don't mind violence, even extreme violence, but the moment you do something sexual, the American public will call for your head on a pike.
Like flashing a tit at the Superbowl. Oh, the humanity!
Re:My opinion on that Superbowl halftime show.. (Score:5, Funny)
Disappointed that they didn't show both tits?
Re:My opinion on that Superbowl halftime show.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'disappointing' part of it was the lack of sexual shock. I watched the Superbowl in a dorm room with 8 other college-aged guys, a fairly sexually charged group of people. Half of the people in the room didn't even *notice* that it was happening, and those that actually saw anything didn't really think anything of it. Christ, it's like whining about seeing a woman breastfeeding her baby in a public park. It might be giggle-inducing for those under 16, but it's hardly harmful or "disappointing."
Your portrayal of sexuality (and how it is/should be viewed) as one of two extremes is a little unfortunate. The 'sex-fest' that is MTV (an informed observation on your part, I'm sure) is certainly not realistic nor necessarily beneficial when teaching children about sex, but it is no more skewed and inaccurate than the wildly conservative views touted as family friendly.
If you feel the need to actually adjust your television viewing habits due to the sexual content on a public network, you could probably stand to do a little better in educating those whom you seem to be a role model or some sort of parental figure for. If the MTVesque view is something you don't want perpetuated, censoring it exactly what not to do. Religious affiliation and the fact they're involved in a church group aside, they're still regular kids. Most of them will have more meaningful sexual information provided to them by their peers. Being honest and open in your dealings with these teens when it comes to sex will be more effective.
As long, of course, as you're willing to accept the fact that they may develop opinions slightly more liberal than your own.
Re:My opinion on that Superbowl halftime show.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The evolution of the modern human breast seems to have began with the development of walking upright. Before this development, the primary attribute on which potential mates were judged was the buttocks.
Breasts as Sex Objects - The Real Story (Score:5, Insightful)
Big fat orbs are a basic sexual signal to the male ape, and breasts provide the "big fat ass orbs" signal when having sex face to face, in place of the ass.... And of course face-to-face coitus is facilitated by the skeletal structure associated with upright walking. So likely the transition to upright posture, the development of face to face coitus and the enlargement of breasts to function as a "sexual" organ occured together in evolutionary time.
Breasts in short, and in part, are an ass transplanted to the chest
But beyond that the REAL REAL reason for the sexualization of breasts is very modern and has to do with the decline of breast feeding.
Western and American children, deprived of the NORMAL two to three years of breast feeding that homo sapiens have enjoyed throughout recent evolutionary history, never got enough of the boob and spend their lives lusting after what they missed.
The hyper-sexualization of breasts is DIRECTLY related to the decline of breastfeeding.
American men in particular are known to be breast obsessed as adults, while breast feeding rates in America are among the lowest in the world - That's a correlation that does suggest causation!
Go to cultures where children derive significant portion of their nutritional needs through the first 3 years of life from the breast and you will find that (1) it is the buttocks and legs that are more sexualized and (2) breasts are freely displayed (often) becase they pretty much thought of as feeding tubes, quite unconnected to sex. http://milkofhumankindness.org/ [milkofhumankindness.org]
That's the real story, you breast deprived American men.
(Yes, I'm an American man too.)
A defense of "no superbowl tits..or warn me first" (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not claim any harm to the one or two kids who noticed a five-pixel breast on their TV screens for a period of under 1 second. My main objection, as I've stated in another reply, was that our current regulatory and cultural environment conditioned me not to expect a strip show in the middle of the superbowl. If our church knew that tits were on the menu, we would not have had a Superbowl party. I hope you can appreciate, despite our differing premises, this point.
While I do not expect a rational skeptic such as you seem to be to adhere to that particular moral choice that we wish to make, I hope you will grant us the freedom to pursue our choices, and some respect for our desire to have a shared understanding of what is going to appear on the TV.
I call it "truth in advertising" or "good product labeling." I recognize a concerned more liberal friend would caution me that labeling content leads to censorship, and being a good reader of 1984 I am not ignorant of those perils, although I think they are overblown if applied in this case. More information about the content, more metadata is good. It's really a matter of courtesy and good expectation-setting within any medium.
Let me explain this in a slashdot metaphor. Just as I do not want to see the goatse guy without adequate warning, despite the fact that I do not find it particularly titilating, sexual or "deeply offensive", I'd just rather not see it while in the middle of reading slashdot without a little warning first.
So it is with tits at the superbowl at church parties.
I am asking for courtesy, not for the world to adopt my sexual ethics.
--LP, who has also lived in Austin btw
it's about more than the children (Score:5, Insightful)
In Afghanistan, women were beaten and sometimes executed for showing even their naked ankles in public. Here is a website [rawa.org] created by Afghan women where they describe the restrictions placed on them by the Taliban. So, probably those women were psychologically harmed by their fundamentalist abusers.
It is up to you to prove that naked breasts are detrimental to our society if you are going to advocate that women be restricted from baring their breasts in public. I submit that you oppose women baring their chests in public because you are uptight about a woman's body. If you disagree, then tell me how it's bad for a woman's breasts to be displayed.
The Horror, The Horror... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clinton's BJ got investigated (along with impeachment) because the Republicans controlling the legislature had a chance to embarrass the Democrats (Clinton).
[TANGENT]
A fascinating amendment would be that no person with a felony conviction would be allowed to hold public office. That would never happen. The thought of every candidate having to pass the equivalent of a DOD/DOE Secret background screening makes me laugh.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, does that even matter? They are responsible for knowing this if the CIA knew this. They said what they said while the knowledge existed in their little club. Whether or not the president was personally aware of the fact is irrelevant, as far as I am concerned.
It's called responsibility.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure bush didn't "lie" about it. as far as he knew that's what the intell said. BUT... it speaks much of his character that he's been a "texas gunslinger" right from the start. That's what I've always been mad about. The French and German allies wanted to do more inspections...work thru the channels. Sure, they had their own tracks to cover [maybe?] but let's face it, any ONE of the countries arguing for a peacful solution could have knocked over Iraq on their own. Bush has been very much a "let them eat cake" type president...he's got no touch at all with real americans... it's apparent he's just a PHB [straight out of dilbert] who hides behind his radical cabinet's decisions instead of being responsible for them and putting cabinet members in their place. Look at his choice of VP...it's still Cheney! even though that guy is nearly impeachable for his part in the energy "crisis". He doesn't belong there...he's got no chance in hell of being president. If he looks like a puppet and acts like a puppet...
To sum it up... Bush has the words of great men like Reagan...but not a lick of the wisdom that made them great. [What truely made Regan great wasn't the military buildup, but his willingness to invite the soviet leaders over here to talk...and treat our biggest rivals with respect, eliminating their fears, even as we were "defeating" them economically. That is something Bush can never, ever do.] His choice of cabinet, VP, and words in public all smack of the typical egotistical american executives we all hate...who are rude, sloppy & ineffectual.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, Bush was going to war because he wanted to go to war, period. When the UN voted against invasion, he basically gave them the finger and went in anyway. (What would happen if a country other than the US did the same thing? That country would probably be a giant hole in the ground right now.) Now look at the mess we have. We haven't accomplished a damned thing over there other than making the Arab popluation hate us even more.
It really hit home last week during the debate. Kerry said something along the lines of "what we decide to do has to pass the 'global test,'" which I thought is indeed very true. As soon as he said that, Bush got pissed. It just highlighted the fact that Bush & co. couldn't give a shit less about what the rest of the world thinks. They are gonna do what they want to do and no one is going to get in their way.
It's time to get real, guys. Every decsion you make has a global impact and you better damn well think about how the rest of the world is going to react to your decisions if you are truely concerned with making the world a better place in the long run.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it depends.
If you're stomping down on a former colony, that's just fine.
If you're an African nation comitting genocide, that's okay too.
If you're trying to wipe out Israel, that's alright.
The list goes on and on...
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
When said policy includes things with such massive collateral damage such as shooting missiles into the streets, killing alleged terrorists as well as many civilians. (I'm using the word alleged here, since it's probably on the word of Mossad, and not any court-ruling that these people are named terrorists.)
Now, before you say, "but what about the terrorists, they're bombing Israeli civilians", I'll be happy to state the difference. The terrorists are criminals and should be treated as such; arrested, if possible, and put to trial. Israel, however, is a state, and should not use the same inhumane methods as criminals that blow people up right and left.
Now, these terrorists may or may not be supported by Arafat (or whomever) in the Palestine government. It's certainly something that requires further investigation. The difference here (between two possible variants of state-sponsored terrorism (term used losely)) is that Palestine (if it actually sponsors the terrorists) does so with more clandestine methods, thus concealing the link between the terror and the state. Israel does no such thing, but instead explains that the methods used are the same their enemies are using (or less worse actually, since Israeli operations has a military target, whereas suicide bombings and such does not - neither side seems overly concerned with collateral damage though). But a state cannot compare its methods or actions to that of a non-state. It simply doesn't work that way.
If the UN were to vote on whether or not to support terrorist activities in Israel they would naturally not support it, nor do they support state-sponsored terrorism of any kind (please correct me on this, if I am mistaken).
As Israel is naturally a sensitive subject, perhaps a small disclaimer is appropriate. This post is NOT antisemitic in nature. My views on the matter would be the same regardless of with nation acted as described above, and I do NOT condone terrorism (not the 'ordinary' kind or the state-sponsored kind (in the slightly Chomskyan sense)).
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
The average Iranian likes America as the cradle of the American way of life and has no grudges against individual Americans. They do show, however, increasing distrust of America as a political entity. As I've said, if the US were to invade Iran to prevent the government from acquiring the A-bomb, the outcome depends on how quickly the US would be able to restore/provide peace, stability, prosperity and individual freedom so that the Iranian people would come to judge America by the former aspect rather than the latter. Seeing the US Iraq experience as well as the fact that Iran is a much more complicated country topographically, ethnically, linguistically and politically, I sincerely hope that the US don't botch this. But then, there's a reason why my country expects to be on a large-scale peacekeeping mission in Iran over the next ten years.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
The way I interperted "global test" was more along the lines of carefully thinking out our actions and basically putting ourselves in the rest of the world's shoes. "How will the Arab world react if we do X? What if we do Y? And what about the Chinese?" The Global Test is more of an abstract concept than a strictly defined set of rules. Sure, for things that don't require immediate action, we should most definately get the input of foreign leaders.
And that's just the problem. I don't think Bush & co. have been taking seriously any of the input from the rest of the world.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it amazes me how many people have apparently forgotten all but two words of that debate answer. To help them, I'll include it here:It's not clear to me why this is controversial. America's true authority in the world isn't military, it's moral. If neither our citizens nor our allies trust our government to act wisely, our ability to influence the world is much diminished. We can hardly persuade people to act against truly dangerous rogue nations like North Korea if they think we might be a dangerous rogue nation ourselves.
Whether or not one truly cares what the other 95% of the planet thinks, there's a lot of pragmatic value in working with allies to achieve our goals.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Informative)
Its unfortunate Kerry didn't know about this statement and didn't throw it back in George's face when George was losing it on "Don't forget Poland".
One thing I'll give the British over the U.S. they make their Prime Minister stand up in front of the opposition and take a grilling. Its pretty obvious George is living in a cocoon, no one ever challenges him, and the first time he had to face some from Kerry he pretty much lost it. I also wager he simply can't deal with the issues unless its regurgitating his "message" or Cheney is whispering in his ear what to say. The debate seemed to prove that.
I'd have to say there may be at least a grain of truth to the rumours circulating about George's mental health. You don't come out of years of acute alcoholism and drug use, untreated, and not carry deep mental scaring, especially when you are under major pressure. The guy simply doesn't have what it takes to hold any position with any power.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Informative)
I know you're being sarcastic here but it should be noted that the governments of American allies pretty much went to war against the public opinion of their population (and some of them are paying for it now), that includes both Britain and Poland. In many cases (including Estonia, my own native country), "official" approval for US policy was achieved by simple bribery and threats. There was probably no country in the world but the US (where it took a lot of brainwashing and spineless media parroting everything the administration said) where the people would actually have believed the story of Bush administration.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Informative)
Of these others, South Korea depends heavily on the US for their own national defense, Berlusconi and Bush are actually buddies, Poland has already stated they were duped by the US on the WMD issue, and were offered financial incentives, and I'm betting Ukraine and Netherlands have similar stories.
In the total breakdown, the US represents about 85% of the troops currently deployed, the British about 7%, and a bunch of other countries have contributed a token amount of troops to show their 'support' for the country that their economies depend on. As you can see, it's not just about the breadth of the coalition as it is about its depth, and the types of countries that are 'members' and their reasons for being there.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, keep in mind I'm a jaded, paranoid conspiracy nut... and a Canadian to make it worst. But the reality of the war was to gain resources in particular oil.
Oil is fungable, the us has nothing to gain by invading Iraq. Simply lifting sancations (like France and Germany wanted) would reduce the cost of Oil as much (in fact more than) direct "control" over Iraq will..
If you want to know what this war really is about look at who profits http://www.halliburton.com/index.jsp
So I guess when Clinton gave Halliburton all kinds of contracts in Kosovo, and Yugoslavia that was all about padding corporate america's pockets right?
Look getting someone to do reconstruction in a war zone is not like hiring someone to seal your driveway, there are very few who do it and Halliburton just happens to be one of the bigger better companies..
Re:LIAR (Score:5, Informative)
Re:LIAR (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that most people have the slightest idea of what Anarchism is. And no I've never thrown a bomb or broken a window.
The American people really need to start looking at alternative politicaal structures, because our is pretty screwed up at this point.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because when G.W. was put under oath he only told the truth about Iraq. Oh, wait a second....he refused to be put under oath...what a complete surprise.
So... The president can be questioned under oath about the whereabouts of his pecker on a particular day, but not questioned under oath about his reasons for invading another country. Go figure.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Second of all, Clinton shouldn't have been on trial for impeachment for getting a blow job in the first place. That he was should be far more worthy of outcry and riot than his lying about it.
And thirdly, while Clinton may very well have believed there were WMDs in Iraq, Bush had no evidence to that effect whatsoever, lied to the American people about it (and continues to do so to this very day), and proceeded to murder thousands of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians for no other reason than to get some more of that tasty oil. And oh yeah, he got rid of a "brutal dictator" in the process... one that posed no credible threat to the U.S., and one of very many "brutal dictators" on this planet -- but the only one with so much delicious oil in his back yard.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
Did they all lie, too?"
NO, they did not.
Intelligence agencies really don't "believe" in things, unlike Bush. They work on best-case, bad-case, and worst-case scenarios.
In their worst case scenarios, Iraq had some chemical weaponry. But the best-case was none. Every service in the world, INCLUDING THE CIA, presented their scenarios, but did not give great weight to the worst-case.
What Cheney did (I'm ignoring Bush here) was to go to the CIA and literally sit in the headquarters cherry-picking worst-case scenarios for several weeks. Not many remember this, but I do.
Intelligence analysts were screaming for help on all media wavelengths, shouting that the intel was being politically savaged by the neocons in the Pentagon and in Cheney's little posse. Several resigned in protest. Some even went on record, thus destroying their careers. Few in the US bothered to hear them.
Here's the beauty part. Tenet the CIA director decided to play ball with the neocons and fluff the intel by ignoring the analysts recommendations and going with all worst-case scenarios for presentation to the President. He though he was covering his ass.
I figured immediately that the poor dingo was being classically set up, and I was dead right.
After the WMDs and all the other nonsense was finally shown to be just that, guess who became the fall guys? YESSSSSSSSSS, Neo, the intelligence services. They very people who screamed that they were being overruled were being set up for suckers.
And it was TECHNICALLY true; the intel did come from the CIA, Jordan, yadda yadda. If you view English words the way Bushites do. The intel was from the CIA, bad CIA.
BUT -- it wasn't complete and it wasn't nuanced. All other-case scenarios were dumped, and only that which Bush needed was presented to the EXTREMELY lazy and cowed reporters in the White House.
The CIA et al did their jobs, and actually DID get the facts straight. But the Cheney neocons twisted worst-case scenarios into real "data" and got their war.
And now, as a reward to himself for his own faith-based reinterpretation of the CIA's facts, Bush has created a superdirector of the intelligence services who will report directly to him: President Bush. After crushing the CIA revolt against the neocons, he now has demonised the CIA as idiots and TAKEN DIRECT CONTROL OF THE AGENCY.
How can Bush get so many facts wrong? Listen to the debate with Kerry again. Bush doesn't understand, literally has no erudition about foreign policy matters. He goes with his gut, and never second-guesses himself. He never *doubts*. He *knows* something is true, such as WMD's, and will not listen to arguments that fault his beliefs. He is impervious to logic or facts. He knows what his people tell him, and that is Cheney once more feeding him like a mushroom.
I know what a lot of you are thinking. Where do I get all this stuff? I got it by READING THE NEWS for the last three years. It's surprising what you get when you read, especially if you stop getting your "facts" from the thoroughly whipped American mainstream news and reading, well, news from anywhere else but here. There are no surprises concerning the Bush manipulation of the CIA if you read the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, any Candaian news outlet.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in Europe. What surprises me is that news like this comes as a shock to US citizens. In Europe, we have known this for years, from the moment Iraq was invaded.
I had the same experience with Fahrenheit 911. I thought, "Nothing new here. Don't tell me the average American didn't know this?!"
Seriously, the world would be a much better place if the citizens of the US, arguably the most powerful country in the world, would be better informed about what's going on in their own country and in the rest of the world.
Since the US has so much influence on the world, I sometimes think it would be fair if every human being in the world was allowed to vote in the US elections (at least as far as foreign affairs are concerned). The republicans would be wiped out.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
True, there are cheaters in the system. And there are probably lots of them. But I believe you should not go out of your way to punish them, that's just punishing yourself. You should try to do everything you can that dissuade the cheating by tailoring the system so that it is not advantageous to cheat, but only if it doesn't impair your lifestyle to do so. Cutting social services impairs your lifestyle and raises the cost of living. I know humans have an instinct against freeloaders, there's a bell that rings in our head at the thought of the possibility of being exploited. Basic instincts can help us lots of times, but we have the advantage over animals that we are intellectual beings. Don't let that basic instinct get to you when your intellect can tell you that you are better off if you just ignore the freeloaders sometimes. Be proud of your legacy to society and to America. Don't be scared it will just benefit the freeloaders. Be glad that you made a better place to live for the other hard workers which are doing the same for you. Yes if you look at it directly I can see how it can seem to benefit mostly others, but it is as much for your benefit, the benefit of the economy and of corporations. You have to look at the big picture. It will be very beneficial for you that everyone around you is competent and sane. There are high costs associated with the opposite situation. You're right taking your hard earned money and forcing you to give it to others for no reason is bad. But this is for your benefit. It also acts as a kind of insurance to you. If ever you or a member of your family gets really sick or you loose your house and everything you own in a disaster, you will have government help to fall on.
I firmly believe capitalism (or profit maximization) is the only way for countries to work well. It is a form of economic survival of the fittest where the better, easier, cheaper alternative is the one that thrives. It is the most natural way to efficient life. But I still think you have to be intelligent about it and not view only the direct obvious causality link (my money goes to the poor), but the big picture where the sum of all direct and indirect advantages are accounted for.
One argument towards taxing the rich is that, you can rarely "hard work" your way into making a salary of $1000000 a year. If you do make that salary it's probably that you inherited money, you manipulated the market (possibly illegally), or you were just plain lucky (you put your money at the right place at the right time). You may have worked hard. But the hard work usually doesn't account for that high a salary. I think people who have acquired their wealth through, manipulation, luck, or inheritance, should be the first ones to be taxed a lot because they haven't worked for their money.
Also assuming we keep the incentive to be productive constant, there is a fixed amou
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it, in fact, enough safer that we can feel justified in basically ticking off the entire rest of the world aside from England, making our intelligence services into a laughingstock, and swelling the ranks of Al Quaida tenfold?
Yep, sure is. Great war. Fully justified. We should teach those Koreans a lesson too. After all, it's not like their atomic weapons would take out more than a few thousand Americans.
-fred
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't think we're not pissed off, we are. We just don't blame you, we blame Blair for being such a slimy bastard and ignoring the largest protest ever held in the UK. Oh, and your media for skewing things to the point where a large part of the US has gone from opposing the war to supporting it (insert Goebels quote about patriotism here).
Re: Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
The roll of all those production managers, producers, directors, and lets not forget overwhelmingly rich and powerful media moguls is to sit around and whittle their dicks.
You can't seriously think that just because the majority of journalists are liberals that the media has a liberal bias. That's like saying that because the majority of workers in the automotive industry are democrats that the industry as a whole supports the democrats. The evidence [opensecrets.org] would be against you in that one.
You can't tell me that with ultra conservative individuals like Rupert Murdoch behind the scenes issuing direct memoranda to the lowest levels of his media empire directing stations on what to run and not to run that conservatives are powerless and unrepresented in the media.
He who has the money makes the rules. The having of money is one of the strongest predictors of political affiliation and the people at the top have a lot of money.
Re: Whaaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
Republican ideologue: The US is a Christian nation founded by Christians, so people should accept that prayer and the Bible have a role in government, and then all will be well.
Democrat ideologue: We have to provide every handup to people who need it, because to not do so is inhumane, and then all will be well.
Green ideologue: We can shift everything to wind and solar and tidal power, and not have to be reliant on oil for power ever again, and it will be cheaper and more reliable, and then all will be well.
Libertarian ideologue: We have to think of America first, and get out of every foreign nation, and drop all taxes and trade barriers, and then all will be well.
Pragmatists are usually somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, pragmatists rarely like to yell much.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please dont confuse the decision makers of the US with "most Americans". Remember the decision makers of the US dont do what most americans want them to do. Also remember that most americans didn't vote for George Bush in the last election.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, here in the UK a huge chunk of the British public protested about the war and the government plain ignored public opinion (not for the first time in this government's history either (can you say "fuel protests"?)... unfortunately, come election time the voters seem to forget about this stuff).
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't even a Bush Jr issue. When Clinton needed to deflect some attention from the fact that the president lied in court (which was the real issue, not the BJ) he went and bombed someone.
However, to be entirely fair, I don't think you can really single out the Americans for that. The whole human species is deffective like that.
I remember some years back India going all nationally happy about their nuke program. FFS, it's still a very poor country (as income per capita goes), and was even poorer back then. Yet instead of, I dunno, building more factories, they dump billions of dollars into WMD research. And the people were actually _happy_ about it.
Or I remember way back when the civil war raged in Beirut. So there was this TV reporter talking to a civilian widdow. And she shows the reporters all the destruction, including a church were civilians took refuge during an artillery barrage. Good idea until a shell flew in through a window, and gibbed every single soul inside that church.
So the distressed woman is calling for help from the western world. Now take a guess what kind of help she wanted. Maybe humanitarian relief? Stopping the war?
No. FFS, she wants more weapons so they can do the same to the other side.
It's one of those things you don't forget easily. It's such a testimony of the utter stupidity of average humans.
And just so noone discounts that as happening only in backwards countries, it happened in Europe too.
E.g., WW2 started with Germany officially just "defending" itself from a heinous attack from Poland. Just in this case, a lie. But it worked.
Hitler's gaining absolute power was also based on another heinous (and fabricated) act of terrorism. A symbolic building, the Reichstag (Parliament building) is burned down on 27 February 1933.
Just like the Americans now, the shocked Germans back then didn't see anything wrong to give up some liberties in such an extreme situation. The very next day, on the Februaray 28'th, President Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler invoke Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which permits the suspension of civil liberties in time of national emergency.
Where that led, we all know.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN did agree that there were unaccounted for weapons and chemicals. Why do you think there were 17 resolutions? The UN however, wanted to wait for the inspectors to find the weapons that were unaccounted for, while the US did not want to wait for 17 more resolutions.
Whether or not you support the war, please get the facts straight. Saddam failed to comply with any of the resolutions. The thousands of pages of reports further proved the UN's, not just the US's , assertions that Iraq had not proven through documentation that they had in fact destroyed all the weapons the UN knew they had from prior inspections.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Informative)
These tubes were made of the wrong kind of aluminum for uranium enrichment. They were too long and too narrow to be suitable. This was in the IAEA report the Bush administration, and the entire UN Security Council, had seen. It was not speculation, it was based on real tubes seized in Jordan. The administration, with Bush as its mouthpiece, lied.
In his speech to the Security Council which underscored the need for war, Colin Powell told the Council that the tolerances for the tubes were better than for any rocket even the US uses. He had, actually, been informed that the tubes were manufactured to comparable tolerances as US rocket tubes. The administration, with Colin Powell as its mouthpiece, lied.
Seems like much ado about nothing, right? But this is the cornerstone of the Administration's belief that Saddam was trying to acquire nuclear weapons. These tubes were the only hard evidence they had going for them.
They weren't just willfully gullible in taking biased reports from a no-name in the CIA which contradicted evidence from DoE experts (a crime of which Kerry and Edwards are also guilty), but they willfully lied. This is now clear.
Fake Uranium Evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Bush also claimed that Sadam was trying to buy uranium from Africa, even though the administration knew there was no evidence of that. And the scandal goes even deeper than that. When the man they assigned to investigate the uranium rumors (retired ambassador Joseph Wilson) revealed the truth (that the evidence was forged), the administration retaliated against him by revealing to the world that his wife was a CIA agent (thus placing her life in danger and risking American security).
And before you discount this as liberal spin, the reported who outed Wilson's wife is Robert Novak, a well known conservative reporter, and he has confirmed that his sources were a pair of senior whitehouse staff member. This assertion is backed up by additional investigation from the Washington Post. A special investigator has been appointed, and even the President has been questioned. The rumors abound now that the two staff member have already been identified (the names have even been leaked), but the Bush administration has put pressure on the FBI to hold off on the arrests until after the election.
Of course there is no proof that Bush himself ordered the retaliation against Wilson, or that he even knew about it, and in fact I believe it very possible that he did not. The evidence so far indicates a couple of staffers reporting directly to Vice President Cheney. It is entirely possible that Cheney took this action upon himself without consulting with the President. Either way, a couple of alarming things remain: The administration used the uranium evidence to support their case for the Iraq war even though they had been told the evidence was bunk. Furthermore, senior staffmembers in the whitehouse broke the cover of an undercover CIA agent (an agent involved in the hunt for weapons of mass distruction no less)... a treasonous act by any measure.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, thats a bit unfair.
George Bush, Dick Chaney and John Ashcroft are going to get us all killed.
Re:Whaaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
-What are you and Pete doing tonight?
-We are going to Bush It, and demand that the movie theater start playing Memento again.
It sounds inappropriate to an uninitiated ear, but it simply means that we intend to engage in irrational, unjustified, unlateral behavior. I reccomend any high-school age slash dotters adopt the term in an effort to make the admin uncomfortable.
Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not feel better off than I did four years ago. I don't even feel the same as I did four years ago.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
One could argue you're the one living in a fantasy if you truely believe every Bush supporter has "constructed a very elaborate little fantasy world in [their] head." I've met quite a few intelligent people who for one reason or another support Bush. I'm not going to argue one side or another, but I will say just because you may not understand someone else's political beliefs and reasoning does not automatically mean they're living in a "fantasy world." Politics is never black and white (or simple for that matter).
It's quite obvious you're not trying to win over any opinions with statements like that.
Re:Explaining that 45% (Score:5, Funny)
Conservative Attacks: "It was from a news source that is, in fact a corporation, thus they had a monetary incentive to make this story. And those who love money love Bush."
Patterns of Birth: "I've heard my mom and dad ridicule Bush when they watch the news all the time. I love my parents, they must be right."
One-Issue Paramount: "Sure, Kerry couldn't choose between soup and salad at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but at least he'll (keep abortion legal / get rid of some of those rich-centric tax cuts / not be Bush)."
Shared Beliefs: "I haven't been saved by Jesus, my president shouldn't have been either."*
Shared Geography: "He's not from the south. Southerners are all racists. Duh."
Rambo Syndrome: Alright, I'll give you that one. There is nothing Rambo-like about Kerry.
* This is, BTW, the most compelling argument I've seen against Bush thus far. As an Atheist, that much God-stuff in the White House is scary shit. But then...Kerry has done nothing to suggest he's any different.
Re:Explaining that 45% (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/28/comedy.p
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/naes/2
Of a simple six-question quiz on stances that the candidates hold on major issues, the average person got less than three questions right.
'Who wants to privatize Social Security?'
'Which one doesn't like assault weapons?'
'What is the cutoff income for Kerry's tax increases?' (50k, 100k, 200k, or 500k)
'Who is a former prosecutor?'
'Who favors making the recent tax cuts permanent?'
'Who wants to make it easier for labor unions to organize?'
People who didn't watch any 'late-night comedy show' scored 2.6 out of 6 right. 2.6. Now, even being charitable and assuming that people can't remember numbers (200k, hint hint) and that people don't remember that before becoming President, GWB's only political experience AT ALL was as Governor of Texas, that's still totally utterly pathetic. Do you realize that it means that MORE THAN HALF of those surveyed scored between 0 and 2 out of 6? And that only one of the questions had more than two possible choices?
If you answer that quiz randomly, you get 2.75 right, on average. Let me say that again. If you don't speak English, and just randomly pick an answer for each question, you get a 2.75.
People who watched Jay Leno got 2.95, David Letterman viewers got 2.91, and viewers of The Daily Show, astoundingly enough, got 3.59. Frequent (more than 3 days a week) network news viewers got 40% right, frequent cable news viewers got 48% (they didn't differentiate out Fox viewers, which might have told a different story), and newspaper readers got 46%. Less than half! The only group of people who averaged more than half were viewers of The Daily Show, who were what, 14% more informed than newspaper readers? (Wow, not to digress or anything, but that's kind of neat.)
Anyone who was paying any attention at all got six, and could have done so while drunk and standing on his or her head. The amount of illegal substances that would have been required to make me score 2 would have incapacitated a small midwestern town.
The American public doesn't even know what the two candidates stand for, and you think they're seriously giving weighted averages of all of the different stances and coming up with a decision?
The extent of your optimism awes me.
-fred
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Moral men admit mistakes. Immoral men will go to any length to justify their actions and will never admit wrong doing. Moral men think long and hard about starting actions that result in the deaths of 15000 people. Moral men start wars as a last resort. Moral men start wars as a last resort when they say that is what they intend to do - i.e moral men keep their word. Moral men do not prey upon the fears of americans to facilitate acts of foreign agression. Moral men are not certain in the face of all doubt but always doubt their information and actions when either of those result in harm to others. Moral men do not accuse others of "flip-flopping" if they themselves have "flip-flopped" repeatedly - i.e. moral men are not hypocrites. Moral men do not misconstrue the words and ideas of their opponents in order to attack an easier target - i.e. moral me do not construct straw men. Moral men step down from positions of authority when it is clear they don't have the intellect, judgement, or leadership to justly execute that authority.
michael's madness (Score:5, Informative)
For instance, check out an earlier NY Times piece [nytimes.com] that actually reinforces the administration's position. Or you could review that this hit piece was to be joined by CBS News in another attempted effort to push fraudulant information and sucker all the sheep out there.
Or should we expect a post from you about "critical national guard documents damage Bush" and experience a deja vu Slashdot experience?
Slashdot readers - you too can read it before Michael (or some alleged anonymous reader, just like the CBS anonymous sources) reads it and makes up a libelous headline damaging Slashdot credibility and objectivity:
Drudge Report [drudgereport.com]
The New Scientist [newscientist.com]
and other excellent critical reads include:
Power Line [powerlineblog.com]
Weekly Standard [weeklystandard.com]
Little Green Footballs [littlegreenfootballs.com]
Oh... I should warn you - if you're determined to vote for Kerry in spite of everything, do NOT go to the any of the above sites. It'll destroy any opportunity for ignorance you might have.
Bad use of a source (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't use Op-Ed pieces as source for 'facts', also don't use an extremist site to get 'facts'. Examples of sites that do not qualify as reliable on facts are:
http://www.freerepublic.org/
http://www.de
http://www.drudgereport.
http://www.commondreams.org/
Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
GWB can rebut any statement by just saying the same simplistic catch phrases that cite only the successes in Iraq. For better or worse, Bush really knows his constituency. People can take "Saddam is in jail" to the polls, but not the three-paragraph (well reasoned or not) statements Kerry makes about why he thought Saddam was a threat but would have relied on inspectors using war as a last resort with a larger coalition of nations, etc.
Energy Task Force had maps of Iraqi oilfields (Score:5, Informative)
CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS [judicialwatch.org] (Their caps, not mine)
First three docs:
Iraq Oil Map.PDF [judicialwatch.org]
Iraq Oil Foreign Suitors.2.PDF [judicialwatch.org]
Iraq Oil Foreign Suitors.1.PDF [judicialwatch.org]
So, before the war, the Vice President, like, has this task force thing, and they won't tell anybody what they talked about. But they had a map of the Iraqi oilfields AND lists of people who would be intersted in those fields. Oh, and the VIP himself? He's still pulling down mad money from Halliburton, to the tune of about half-a-mill a year.
But "War for Oil"? Man, that's just CRAZY talk right there. CRAZY.
WMD Spin Machine (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah, there's credibility just oozing from this story. We're talking two years after the fact and these anonymous sources are only now growing a spine? On conditions of anominity??? Oh, and it just happens to be election year! What a coincidence!
And while we're on the subject of amazing coincidences, where was this scandal coverage in 2002? I mean, you supposively had top CIA officals who knew, you had the Department of Energy who knew, America's leading nuclear scientists who knew as well as any number of intelligence experts and Martha Stewart who knew. No doubt the current administration put the screws to all of them to supress this damning story and loosened them just in time for the Primaries. I mean, what better time is there to shoot yourself in the foot by letting key sources blather away about political secrets that you'd managed to keep anybody from knowing for the last two years?
Are we stretching the bounds of credibility yet? No? Then it's a good thing for the NYT that investigators there have found no evidence of hidden centrifuges or a revived nuclear weapons program. [cnn.com] I mean, you'd almost [pbs.org] think [defenselink.mil] this administration [cnn.com] acted without [caabu.org] cause [cnn.com]...
Scott Ritter (Score:5, Informative)
Scott Ritter was a U.S. Marine who served in the Gulf war and acted as chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission to disarm Iraq (UNSCOM). He resigned his role as chief inspector after the CIA was caught trying to into the inspection teams in 1998.
In an interview with Paula Zahn, one of the United States' leading experts on Iraqi weapons programs left no question as to his feelings on the justification for war:
Scott Ritter was bashed by the media, who painted him as a traitor to the United States for failing to accept the White House's justifications. It's interesting how the media, often accused of being quite liberal, went out of their way to discredit Ritter and show loyalty to the White House in late 2002, yet reported of just which mouths had engulfed Clinton's penis could hardly be avoided during Monicagate.
The real story here isn't that the White House lied -- if you pay attention, White House officials "flip-flop" so much over the supposed motivations for war that even their caricature of Kerry looks rock solid. The real story here is that the media fell for the Iraq justification (or lack thereof) hook, line, and sinker, while doing the dirty work of discrediting Scott Ritter and ignoring or discrediting any other voices asking for more investigation for military action against Iraq.
You want links? Try these:
Documentation of "flip-flops" by the "liberal" media -- reporting the truth [fair.org] (that UN inspectors voluntarily left in December 1998), then
Why do people like Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
My health care premiums have risen every year.
The first Tax break was really a loan to be repaid the next year. Funny I had to pay it while I was on my unemployment.
My friends are now fighting a war and have emailed me several times to never believe what their superiors have said. Believe the News.
No WMD's and I'm sure Saddam is still laughing inside about it.
Our freedom is threatened by the Patriot Act.
Bush wants to amend the constitution a document that has historically given rights to individuals. This time he wants to take away individual rights.
Cuts money to the police while at the same time allowing the assault weapon ban to expire.
Oh despite a 87billion dollar boost in money soldiers (I was one) are still getting raises that are lower than inflation and many make much less than poverty level with housing and food considered.
That second tax break amounted to 15 dollars a month for me and I make 60k a year. However I'm paying more than 40 dollars extra a month in Gas for my veichle and nearly 50 dollars extra in energy costs for my house.
Oil prices are high reguardless that there's no shortage and in fact Saudi Arabia has consistently said consumption is far below supply. Yet nobody is doing anything to stop the price runup's.
Also I've learned something. Americans need to pay attention to who they're voting for. That senator or govenor you're voting in may have more ambitions than just helping your state or their constituents. Cheny is a grand example of who we may not of had to put up with if they didnt vote him into congress years ago. In fact he may never of joined up with any of the Bushes and Gore could be president today.
Let's apply a little criticle thinking here (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we please, just for a few minutes, remove our tinfoil bodysuits and think??
So, Bush lied to the american public in order to get us to to go war. Why would he do that? For political advantage? That's maybe a plausible theory, so let's think about it. He got a rise in the polls after septh 11th, so maybe he wanted to take us to war in Iraq as a way to keep his approval numbers up, and maybe just line the pockets of his corporate cronies. At first glance, this sounds plausible. That's how you can explain the president's willingness to wage a war in Iraq - it's close to afghanistan, right? And those terrorists were arabs. He thinks that should be enough to convice the average shmuck american. Then when you consider that we know we could crush the Iraqi army easly, he can spew a bunch of feel-good rhetoric: we're ridding the world of a dangerous tyrant and liberating the iraqi people. As an added bonus, he can give the contracts for getting all of that iraqi oil to his corporate buddies. It sounds like a decent plan.
Now, please, think critically about that for a second. The hypothesis is that bush's desire for going to war was based on purely political (and perhaps montary) reasons - so that he could get a boost in the poll numbers. A few big questions should present themselves:
And this is surprising why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world knew that Iraq had no WMDs. Everyone knew it was a "war to boost the economy". Nobody did anything. Why didn't America know? Ask your media that question and ask yourselves how much international news you actually listen to? Ask yourselves why.
Then you'll see why it isn't surprising. It is always easier for a government to go in for the wrong reasons and explain later, just like it's easier for us to do something we've set our minds on and explain later.
Look at the U.S's foreign policy from the outside (try some independent and known-to-be-unbiased news agencies for a change) and you'll see the difference.
WMD fiasco vs Constitutional power to declare war (Score:5, Insightful)
The WMD fiasco is nothing but a sideshow to keep you from seeing the real underlying issues here.
Ever since Vietnam the Presidents have totally pissed on the Constitution they swore to uphold. The President has NEVER had power to declare war, that was granted to the Congress. I don't recall Congress declaring war against Iraq, for whatever reason.
The Congress does not want the political heat of declaring war. So they attempt to push that over to Bush by signing a letter of "support for our troops". They can then blame the President for whatever goes wrong, or take credit for whatever goes right. This way, they keep their offices relatively unspotted in the view of the people. Offices which in reality consist largely of shoveling money towards corporate interests.
All this reeks of the same corruption that occurred when the Senators of the Roman Republic shoveled all their power over to Octavian... making him Caesar. Those Senators did not want to risk alienating the people by taking stands on issues, they would rather let Augustus do it, and then blame him when things went sour. Thus, those Senators could hide their incompetency and accountability from the people, while continuing their corrupt business dealings.
We read in Article I Section 8 that Congress has power...:
Article I Section 8 (Powers granted to Congress):
"...To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;...."
In Section 1 or Article II we read: Article II Section 1 (Executive branch, office of President):
"...Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Now that Congress has no gumption and represents corporations instead of the people-- the President does whatever he wants. So we go to war at his say so, over whatever he wants us to fight and die for. The leaders of our country swore to uphold the Constitution, yet they piss on the balance of power that was built into it for their own political and personal gain.
And these people are going to bring "freedom" to Iraq. Physicians... heal thy selves.
"I'll liberate you peoples' fate
Spoke the Burnin' Bush
But the song of beasts
Growl with oil soaked teeth
Their dollar is mighty and true
Now the eagle soars the sky
Over refugee and child
And to all there is no end
Another day in perfect Hell"-- Flogging Molly
Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does it seem that nobody listens to what anybody else says if the president claims something contrary. Do you think the guy in the Oval Office is some kind of God handing down holy truth and his word is to be trusted above anyone else's -- even if they are experts on the issue?
Grow up, Americans! It's time you got over your infantile fixation on hero figures and giving them divine, infallable status.
I don't know what it is like in other countries, but here in Canada, even people who generally like the Prime Minister will treat things he says with a measure of healthy scepticism. And if a bunch of experts line up saying the PM is full of shit, people will listen to the experts, not the PM.
When this was in the news 2 years ago, it was easy enough to conclude that the White House was off base in its assertions. Why is it just now that people are thinking "Hey! Maybe the experts were right and the president was wrong"?
Re:Contempt of Congress (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Contempt of Congress (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Contempt of Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
And for impersonally killing thousands of people, in cold blood, with millions of witnesses, and being caught grinning into the camera, he may well be re-elected. Superb.
Re:What makes you think this will change anything? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's a damn shame that the idiots in this country believe that he is right. His administration has been caught in the liars den multiple times yet somehow they are able to get people to continue to turn to them in the face of this "imminent threat".
Once the people of this country get their heads out of their false reality created by what they are fed via consolidated media perhaps they will learn. It is unlikely that anything will change because people refuse to think for themselves. They want to be a passive recipient of all the news they get.
You cannot be successful in life being a passive recipient in anything.
Re:COULD (Score:5, Insightful)
And when the plan entails thousands of US casualties, and tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties, do you call that "caution?"
Re:COULD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Oceania has always been at war with EurArabia. It has always been allies with East Iraqistan.
You may be crimethinking without even knowing it comrade. Please report to the Ministry of Homeland Security.
US Govt == Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US Govt == Hypocrites (Score:5, Informative)
The brutal treatment of Germany by the Allies after WWI was beyond inhuman. It created an incubator for fascism. We are foolishly repeating history now in the Middle East, and children being born today will pay for it dearly. I guarantee it.
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you prove that YOU don't have weapons. Let us know how that goes. Good luck!
BTW, if you can prove a negative, please let the world know. It will be a great advance.
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Funny)
Phew! That's a relief!
So, does God exist? I'm glad I finally found someone who pointed out that the existance of God is binary, and therefore is provable one way or the other!
Well, don't keep us waiting! Which is it?!
</sarcasm>
You idiot. I can't prove that there is no Loch Ness Monster. I can't prove that Santa Claus doesn't exist. I can't prove that a blue monkey doesn't control your thoughts. I can't prove that aliens DID NOT LAND IN IOWA LAST NIGHT AND MOVE A SLEEPING COW ONE FOOT TO THE LEFT, IN DEFIANCE OF ALL LOGIC!
You can't prove a negative like that.
Or, to use your "W00t!" lingo against you: PWN3D!
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were President, on September 12, 2001 I would have announced two new programs:
To my mind, the best way to lower the threat level of the Middle East is to stop giving it our money. Let Europe buy their oil and become entangled in their affairs. We don't need it.
Of course, I have a libertarian view of foreign policy: Peaceful co-existance without any of the turn-the-other-cheek stuff. Don't fight unless you have to, but be sure that when you do fight, you minimize the probability of your adversary attacking you again.
Afghanistan? A good start? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Osama is a Saudi prince by birth. Saudi charities [usatoday.com] were funding terrorism. Saudi Arabia makes their women wear hoods, teach and endorse radical fundamentalist Islamic religion, and have no problem with slavery. [bbc.co.uk] Afghanistan was just a terrorist camp ground. By the time we got there, the terrorists were gone and the Taliban was left holding the bag.
So where did we go after Afghanistan? That's right, Iraq. Who's next? Iran maybe? We aren't going to win the war on terrorism, because we keep invading the wrong countries.
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you prove that something doesn't exist?
No Excuse for Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless there was some reason to believe that he did have weapons, there was no reason not to simply continue with the inspections. Anyone with any sense knew this at the time -- why do you think Powell tried so hard to convince the UN that Saddam really did have WMD?
Even if you feel that at some point something had to be done, why that particular point, if there was no evidence of WMD? And why this particular action -- even if something had to be done, why did that "something" have to be invading and taking over the country?
More importantly, this is no excuse to lie to the American people. If the war was justified regardless of whether Saddam was building nukes, why not just say that? Why lie to us about it?
The answer, of course, is that the American people would never have accepted going to war unless they felt threatened. So basically, Bush tricked us into going to war, and now he wants us to be OK with that because he thinks the war was justified anyway. That just doesn't work for me, and I think a lot of the American people feel the same way.
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
How do I prove I don't have something? Especially if you are convinced that I do? It is easy to prove I have something, I can show it to you. But to prove I don't have it I... show you nothing? But then you say it is over there. So I show you there is nothing over here and you say that I moved it over there. Of course, by the time we are able to check, you say I've moved it somewhere else.
However, getting away from the philosophical and theoretical prove, I am pretty sure that was never a condition to begin with. He had to agree not to develop weapons of mass destruction and allow inspectors to look around to verify that he wasn't. While we can't prove somebody doesn't have WMD, we can be reasonably certain they don't because the development of all them leaves chemical traces behind that can be detected long after they've left. Which is why an inspection regime can work.
The ball was in Saddam's court.
No, he let the weapons inspectors in and let them search anywhere. We gave them the locations of where we thought they were producing WMDs and they all turned out completely wrong. We kicked the weapons inspectors out so that we could bomb Iraq.
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
We forced the inspectors to leave. We (i.e. Bush) decided that the inspectors' mission had failed and offered as evidence a pack of lies.
"we tried that for OVER A DECADE and it wasn't working"
Did we find any WMDs? NO! This sounds like success to me. How to justify this comment ("it wasn't working") of yours?
Is there even one honest bone in your body? Are you just a political hack?
Burden of disproof (Score:5, Insightful)
"Where are your hidden weapons labs?" "We have none!" "Well, show us." "Show you what?" "Your weapons labs." "But we have none." "Well, prove it." "All right. Where would you like to look?" "You tell us." "But if we have no weapons labs, we have nowhere to tell you about." "Ah, so, then, you refuse to be cooperative."
At the last, when the inspectors were still in there, just before they were pulled out, the Iraqis were cooperating to the fullest extent of their abilities. There were some major paperwork problems, apparently generated because when they destroyed some of their weapons they didn't document them sufficiently. But they were even being allowed to inspect within all the places that had previously been off-limits, and in fact were even allowed unannounced visits with no warning time.
Strangely, the rest of the world thought they were doing fine. Given that, one must either assume that every single other country with the exception of England* is bone stupid, or that we are warmongers who above all else didn't WANT the inspections to work.
Makes you feel good to be an American, don't it?
-fred
* - (Yes, we had other allies eventually. But at that point we still hadn't scraped them together, so it was just GWB and GB)
Re:I'm not listening!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm not listening!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
This was pretty simple to scare up off the Internet:
Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he's for it.
Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he's for it.
Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he's for it.
Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he's for it.
Bush is against nation building; then he's for it.
Bush is against deficits; then he's for them.
Bush is for free trade; then he's for tariffs on steel; then he's against them again.
Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a "road map" and a Palestinian State.
Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.
Bush first says he'll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn't.
Bush first says that 'help is on the way' to the military
Bush-"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden." Bush-"I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care."
Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.
Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.
Bush first says the U.S. won't negotiate with North Korea. Now he will.
Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then say's he shouldn't have.
Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq (no matter what the outcome). Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote.
Bush said the "mission accomplished" banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.
Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he's against it.
Re:High tolerance tubes (Score:5, Informative)
If you RTFA it's very clear that the tubes would be completely useless in a nuclear program. And that the specs were consistent with the Iraqi army's requirements for these rockets.
And, as the article shows, all this was known to the current administration months before the Iraq war began.
Great reporting by the Times. Very eye-opening.
So the argument that Sadam was developing nuclear weapons was based on the discredited Yellowcake report from Niger. And on these aluminum tubes. Both of which were known to be suspect before the war began.
Re:High tolerance tubes (Score:5, Informative)
I read this story Saturday evening and the tubes that Iraq was shopping for were of a much greater tolerance than needed for their small artilery rockets.
Wrong wrong wrong WRONG!!!!
From the story:
To sum up: a low-level analyst found an old centrifuge design that he thought the Iraqis were copying. He ignored the fact that the tubes were an exact match of rockets the Iraqis used earlier, and didn't even bother to ask the inventor of the original centrifuge whether or not the tubes could be used in that centrifuge.
End of story, WRT the "much greater tolerance" line.
-jdm
Re:Is there no haven? (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot provides a discussion forum for a reason. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about liberal eyes, (or even what a liberal is exactly), and I don't know about aluminum tubes either. But I do know that anybody who claims that the Bush government doesn't lie and manipulate on a regular basis is not in the business of viewing the world at all.
-FL
Anti-Republican != Democrat (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time to get rid of both of our main parties.
Re:If Bush Administration Lied About WMD, (Score:5, Insightful)
As I recall, Clinton made the same "lies" about Iraq in front of Congress... or did you not know that??
When? Clinton never EVER testified before Congress, so right there you show you don't know what you're talking about. Sitting presidents don't.
And Senator Kerry has been on television several times, as far back as 1995 in fact, stating the same "lies".
When? When did John Kerry know that aluminum tubes were not capable of being used in nuclear weaponsmaking, but claimed they were so capable anyway, and did so in front of Congress? Do tell.
How can something be inflamatory anyways when these people actually made those statements? In this country, that's what we call telling the truth.
They were stating what they believed. When the Bush admin officials testified in front of Congress, they were intentionally LYING. Big difference. They had information beforehand that contradicted what they were saying, and can be proven to have known it.
But its obvious you've got the blind ideology stick shoved up your bum, so I don't think this post will make a bit of difference.
Shyah? Conservatives alwas find it so easy to find a hole to crawl into when the rhetoric fails to be convincing.
Re:The NY Times is not a credible news source. (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so Jayson Blair pulled the wool over their eyes, and they took a credibility hit. But with regard to the Bush White House, the only thing the NYT admitted to doing wrong is saying that they didn't question the Administration enough before going to war.
That's right. They retracted agreeing with the President.
Oops.
Enough with this "The NYT and Washington Post are dirty liberal rags that print 'news' that is actually lies!" BS.
-jdm
They lied (Score:5, Informative)
The one piece of evidence that was kept rather quiet, mentioned obliquely as reports from defected Iraqi citizens, turned out to come from one or two con artists.
There was not one single piece of evidence that was valid, and anybody following the leadup to war could tell. Anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the evidence was labelled a "liberal," as if it were a dirty word. Hell, even Anne Coulter called those folks traitors.
To place so many citizens in harm's way (and to perform a national variety of vigilante justice) based on such questionable evidence took either an unbelievable amount of self-deception, or a desire to attack Iraq *in spite* of the evidence.
Considering there was *no link whatsoever* between bin Laden and Hussien, I can only interpret the evidence in one way: President Bush intentionally lied to the US citizens to follow a path to war with a beaten enemy. I don't know why. The "liberal" in me thinks it might be to benefit Halliburton and Bechtel. The realist in me realizes it might be nothing more than a distraction from the complete disaster in Afghanistan. Or there might have been a *real* reason to go after Iraq, one that had to be hidden from the world.
Considering the price tag in human life and our nation's honor and credibility, I'm not sure which would be worse.
Re:Hindsight and the pathetic Slashdotter (Score:5, Insightful)
And before you start typing your rebutal to my comment, let me add that I think it was stupid of the legislative branch to vote in favor of providing an option for the executive branch to make war....
Re:i always thought it was right to invade iraq (Score:5, Funny)
You're right. Absolutely right. Every time a terrorist group with members in countries all over the world plans to bomb us, we should fix a few of the countries that may or may not have been involved. Because the USA's job is to fix countries that might be a threat to us in the future and turn these nations into carbon-copies of us. It's the American way, after all. [wikipedia.org]
Re:i always thought it was right to invade iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think that after all of this, the rest of the world trusts the US with nukes?
This is the main problem - the US, which was basically trusted by most of the world to "do the right thing" is now seen as consistently doing "the wrong thing".
Now there isn't much that the "rest of the world" can do about it
The US once was percieved as a "beacon of freedom" in the way that no other nation has been in history. Your current President has managed to flush that reputation down the toilet. It would take 20 years of great Presidents really making positive contributions to the world (as the US did for the most part last century) to undo the damage the current one has done. If the current one gets re-elected, I'm pretty sure that in four years time Americans abroad will be about as popular as white South Africans abroad during the 1980's.
Re:When did /. become a mouthpiece for the Democra (Score:5, Insightful)
Nerds have strong opinions about many things, even things that are political. Software Patents are a political issue, for example, as is Linux vs. Windows, to a large extent. GPL vs. BSD licensing has had its share of politically-motivated discussion. So has pretty much anything regarding Sun Microsystems or HPaq or IBM, lately.
Adding in election politics, at least until November, doesn't seem entirely out of line, given that the Presidential election is weighing more on many minds than whether Java 5 supports syntactic sugar for type casting.
Re:fine, who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
I care, you better care, and so should anybody else who cares about the USA.
Clinton lied about getting blow jobs from Monica Lewinsky in the White House, evidently because he hadn't told his wife and daughter about it. In fact, Hilary and Chelsea Clinton were the only people truly injured by what he did; but conservatives in America freaked out about it, and a partisan majority in the House impeached him. Ann Coulter wondered whether he should be impeached or assassinated.
Bush, however, lied about the reasons to start a war, in which presumably tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, and over a thousand American soldiers have died, bereaving their families and making orphans of their children. Bush's dishonesty is a moral abomination that has caused an enormous amount of death and suffering, with no end in the foreseeable future.
If you see some kind of moral equivalency between Clinton's lies and Bush's, then I have no choice but to wonder if you comprehend the value of human life.
Interesting, Iraq under Saddam has often been called a brutal dictatorship, and Bush supporters like to cite that as an ex post facto justification for war, but the expression "genocide" has rarely been used.
Be that as it may, dictatorship or "genocide" were not given by Bush and Cheney as justifications for the war, and the American people were never given the opportunity to decide whether they would support a war on those grounds. They said it was because of WMD's and alleged connections to Al Qaeda, both of which have proven to be false. And what's worse, the Bush Adminisration may have been aware of the shakiness of their claims. Chances are, they realized that the American people would not have have supported a war to overthrow a dictator who was no threat to the US, so they decided to come up with something else, anything else, no matter how poorly supported by the facts.
If a "zero tolerance policy towards genocide" is the justification for war, then do you advocate US intervention in Sudan, which is widely regarded as a potential genocide in the making? Neither Bush nor Kerry support such a policy, as they both stated in the debate. I doubt that the American people would support such an action under present circumstances. Wouldn't you agree with Bush and Kerry that at applying other means of pressure in Sudan, such as enlisting the help of the Organization of African States, is a better way to start?
If overthrowing dictatorship is justification for war, to you support a military overthrow of North Korea? In fact, North Korea is worse than Iraq by far on all of the reasons given for invading Iraq: It is widely agreed that they really do have WMD's (four to seven nuclear weapons); and North Korea is one of the cruelest dictatorships the world has ever seen, where the people are in constant danger of starvation.
If overthrowing tyranny is justification for war, to you support a military overthrow of the People's Republic China? A communist dictatorship ruling a billion people?
If overthrowing dictators is the justification for war, the do you advocate war against almost all of South America, almost all of the Middle East, almost all of Africa, and almost all of Southeast Asia?
Are you aware that this world is filled almost to the brim with ruthless tyrannies? Indeed, we certainly should do whatever we can against it, but if the answer is that the US should go to war against any and every dictator in the world, then we would be at war with almost all of the world, almost all of the time.
And every time we go to war, assuming we succeed with the overthrow, in the aftermath we would be faced with just the sa
Why I don't like Bush (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, absolutely. I doubt that there's a potential presidential candidate that absolutely refrains from lying.
However, Bush is in hot water not for lying (Clinton, for instance, lied about his sex life and the public didn't care) but for lying to convince the public that we needed to declare war on Iraq. Clinton's lie maybe set a bad example, but that's about it -- Bush's had a lot of lives, international relations, and money at stake.
People are attracted to voting for Bush because we always know where he stands, and yes I do want him to send the military to kill terrorists and terrorist networks (and yes I do know somewhat of the sacrifice military people make, my dad was in the military, and was half paralyzed and half brain dead from the time I was 7 due to his injuries in the service).
Do you? What's Bush's timeline for Iraq over the next four years? What, in detail, does he intend to do with alternative fuel research? I don't know, because Bush hasn't announced anything. I don't really know much about Bush's specifics. I know that:
* His VP is very hawkish.
* Bush is willing to invade and occupy countries for reasons that I do not consider sufficient to invade and occupy countries.
* Bush backs changing the Constitution to ban gay/lesbian marriage. I don't like this.
* Bush has pushed NASA into reallocating a huge amount of their funds towards a manned Mars mission, not something that I view as worthwhile as other projects that were replaced.
* Bush has said that he supports the Assault Weapon Ban (one of the few reasons I could see voting for Bush instead of Kerry would be that Republicans tend to be better about protecting gun rights).
* Bush has made my nation very unpopular internationally over the span of his presidency.
* Ashcroft is Bush's appointed AG -- and Ashcroft pushes his conservative religious values on the nation, is an advocate of monitoring and eliminating oversight of the Department of Justice.
Does anyone remember September 11th? Does anyone remember Osama declaring war on the U.S.? Does anyone remember the feelings they had that day, or the day after 9/11,... the feelings that justice must be done for these several thousand people that died, and we must prevent it from happening again. Look, Kerry voted for this war too, he supported it. Bush just stuck to his guns, I know where he stands and that's why I'm voting for him.
That many people die each week from smoking or each month from car crashes. Both problems cause much more economic on a *recurring*, *yearly* basis. Yet most of Bush's presidency has been spent prioritizing the "War on Terror" over everything else, and allocating my money to fight this "War on Terror". Said "War on Terror" could be taken directly from 1984. I don't like it.
Even if there weren't WMD's, remember Saddam was a tyrant dictator that killed thousands of his own people with WMD's and then threw them in mass graves.
He killed those people *after* we encouraged them to rise up against him. It's a little difficult to call him out on that point. Besides -- I expect that with the proper media coverage, the skeletons in just about anyone's closet can be made pretty awful -- I don't want a leader to declare war and try justifying it afterwards on very flimy grounds. By this logic, if we find Bush's grounds for war to be legitimate, we also need to allow him to declare war on a large number of other regimes around the world, and try to use military force to cause change. I think that this is a bad idea -- I don't accept the "well, Saddam was a nasty guy" justification. Besides, if Saddam is *that* bad, don't you think it'd be better for the Iraqis to rise up and remove him, rather than us? Look at our Revolutionary War. We had enough people get fed up with the leaders