John Hawkins has been busy tilting at myths, and puncturing a few. We've covered a number of these points ourselves, but John takes a rapid-fire, link-filled approach as he goes through canards like:
- George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
- A study released in March of 2003 by a British medical journal, the Lancet, showed that 100,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the US invasion.
- The Bush Administration claimed Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
- The war in Iraq was actually planned by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz back in 1998 at a think tank called the Project for the New American Century.
- The war on terror has nothing to do with Iraq.
- Saddam Hussein had no ties to terrorism.
- Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al-Qaeda.
- The Downing Street Memo proves Bush lied to the American people about the war.
Not that it will stop the Left from repeating any of them, of course; and there's more to learn on every one of these topics. Still, it's a good place to start.
Pretty compelling.
Necessary work, but where you would think that these are solely the province of conspiracy nuts, I've seen them all repeated as proven objective fact by the MSM.
Ok, so his arguement that Bush didnt lie about WMDs seems to rest on the following:
1. The Democrats said Iraq had WMDs.
2. Some foriegn intelligence agencies said Iraq had WMDs.
3. We found a few old shells.
That is it? No mention of Bush
What about that fact that much of the "evidence" that Bush based his coments on, and one would assume the Dems based their coments on, were worked and manipulated? Seems to break the arguement.
Pretty weak.
Show me the WMDs.
Just another attempt to re-write history.
Max:
Are you really trying to claim that the intelligence community worked and manipulated the WMD evidence during the Clinton Admnistration?
Or are you claiming that Dubya persuaded the intelligence community to do so, perhaps through his extraordinary time-traveling capabilities?
And would that awesome power extend to Russian and British intelligence as well?
there is a difference between lying about WMDS and being mistaken. If everyone believed the same thing based on the available evidence then Bush did not make the concern up - The evidence was mistaken not made up. Or if it was made up, it was made up by democrats as well as far back as 1998.
1. George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
a. The argument never addresses any George Bush claims, as Max points out.
b. "Lied" is of course, very strong. "Misled" exxagerated", "false pretenses" - these are just as damaging, and not addressed.
c. Exaggeration of WMD threat that WAS believed to be there. From the DSM - "But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran". We've covered this distinction before here, and "a few shells" or "some" chemical capability that is less than Libya, North Korea and Iran, isn't a justification for "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud".
d. This of course ignores the sanctions that DID occur, the investigators ON THE GROUND before the war.
e. Ignores the IAEA saying "nothing was there", but we still went anyway.
Given all the above, AND that there were no WMD's, the conclusion is inescapable.
2. A study released in March of 2003 by a British medical journal, the Lancet, showed that 100,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the US invasion.
AMAC has been through this right? It's an estimate, based on sound statistical measurement. Sure, the estimate might be off, but it might not be.
3. The Bush Administration claimed Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
You simply have the constant conflation of 9-11 and Iraq. Too numerous to mention.
4. The war in Iraq was actually planned by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz back in 1998 at a think tank called the Project for the New American Century.
Strawman using the word "planned". There are always plans, right? Nevertheless the thinking of PNAC definitely had an influence.
That's enough for now.
"Given all the above, AND that there were no WMD's, the conclusion is inescapable."
Do you know what a lie is? Why dont we stat there.
Why dont you give us one single statement you believe was a lie and show us how Bush positively knew it to be false when he said it (that is what a lie is btw).
"Sure, the estimate might be off, but it might not be."
And the estimates the other sources listed that were much lower might be off or might not be. Whats your point?
"You simply have the constant conflation of 9-11 and Iraq. Too numerous to mention."
But that wasnt the question. Again, whats your point?
"Nevertheless the thinking of PNAC definitely had an influence."
Did the thinking of the law signed by Clinton directing the US to compel regime change in Iraq influence the decision? Is Clinton part of the secret cabal?
And when are those who scream up and down that Saddam had no connection with Al Qaeda should explain this:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=110006953
Where's the apology for those 'lies'?
Illogical leftists like Max can be defeated very easily by exposing their hypocrisy :
1) Max insists that we were 'lied to' about WMDs, so the war was wrong.
2) Thus, the question to Max is 'Would you support the war IF WMDs were found?'. He would answer 'yes'.
3) Now, this means that Iran and North Korea, which openly say that they have WMDs, and are threatening to use them, certainly should be invaded, correct? If WMDs are the reason for which we should go to war or not, that would mean that Iran and North Korea should be invaded by that logic, RIGHT?
4) Max will dodge this gaping contradiction in ashamed silence.
Max, no such "facts" about "manipulation". And you obviously didn't read the Duelfer report, we found far more than a few old shells.
JC, putting aside the fact that the Lancet "study" was a political putup job that avoided even the semblance of scientific method ( e.g. no peer review etc. dubious statistical methodology ), the study didn't conclude that 100,000 were "killed". It concluded that there were that many more deaths from all causes than would be expected otherwise. "Killed" implies a more direct causation than the study was purporting reporting. A UN study using a definition closer to the term "killed" showed a figure approx one-quarter the amount.
And the constant "conflation" is in your mind more than the Bush administration's statements.
So why are you perpetuating these myths?
If you look at the entirety of the events leading up to the Iraq war I think question one is still very shaky and mythical.
Did George Bush "lie" about weapons of mass destruction?
I don't think you can pin that on Bush. Mislead, perhaps and quite likely. I defy any commenter here to claim that at the very least evidence was cherry picked. The worst of that being the outlandish Aluminum Tubes claim.
None of it is relevant anyway. Get ready for the real shaker!
We didn't go to war with Iraq because we thought they had weapons of mass destruction!
Not in the end anyway.
We went to war with Iraq because we began to really fear that THEY DIDN'T HAVE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
Sound strange? Not really.
We had inspectors on the ground despite Bush's claim that we went to war because Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in.
They had complete and unfettered access to any site for the most part. And they were coming up bone dry.
Think of the implications of allowing those inspections to continue. Eventually we would have had to admit that Saddam's weapons were no more. Could we have gotten the UN to maintain the sanctions in such a situation? No way.
Allowing the inspectors to give Saddam a clean bill of health was simply not an acceptable outcome.
Hence, the inspectors were pulled and the invasion began.
I won't argue here if all of this was a good thing or not because that's a complex question.
But I'll certainly argue the real reason why the invasion was eventually begun.
And that was the unnaceptable possibility that we were wrong about Saddam's weapons stockpile.
Am i alone in saying that didnt make a lick of sense? The inspectors would never have been credited had they tried to give Hussein a clean bill of health. He had too much of a record of deception and gamesplaying right up until the bombs started dropping. As has been said ad nauseum, almost every government, every intelligence agency, and the vast majority of politicians on the planet thought Hussein had an illicit weapons program (which he did) and a stockpile of weapons (which he apparently didnt). Lets try to remember how things were back then, nobody short of the erratic Scott Ritter was seriously arguing Hussein was clean. Nobody.
Mark
The inspectors wouldn't have been credited by whome?
The US government? Probably not, since we didn't want them in there in the first place.
But the UN is a different matter all together. And as Dick Cheney will tell ya, unilateral sanctions are worthless.
"He had too much of a record of deception and gamesplaying right up until the bombs started dropping."
Really? Care to cite some examples of deception and gamesplaying during the last round of inspections?
"As has been said ad nauseum, almost every government, every intelligence agency, and the vast majority of politicians on the planet thought Hussein had an illicit weapons program (which he did) and a stockpile of weapons (which he apparently didnt)."
Prior to the last round of inspections? True. After they'd been in for a few months? No way. Care to see some examples of government intelligence agencies who began to doubt their previous beliefs on the subject?
I'd be happy to go over the actual time lines with you if you'd like. But I get the impression you are really not interested.
JC, meet Bill:
Or his estranged buddy, Al:
I voted for these guys. Another guy I have voted for, Dick Durbin, disagreed. He looked at the intelligence and concluded there wasn't enough evidence to justify war. That's fine. We can talk about the "level" of intelligence, so long as we recognize that there is no such thing as perfect knowledge and as long as we keep in mind that there is a risk associated with waiting for more intelligence (the point that Rice was clearly making, if euphemistically). Unfortunately, that's not the type of sane discussion the Left wants to have.
The only one who clearly lied or misled about WMD is sitting in an Iraqi prison right now, eating Frit Lay products.
By the way Mark.
Scott Ritter was in Iraq as late as 1998. I certainly wasn't and I doubt you were.
And in the end, lets keep in mind when calling him "erratic" that he was right and both you and I were wrong. (I suspected Saddam still had weapons though probably not in the quantities we claimed) and he was right.
Max,
Answer the following questions :
1) You say that there are no WMDs. Would you support the invasion if we HAD found WMDs? Would that have changed your stance?
2) If you answer 'yes' to the first question, does that mean that Iran and North Korea, which openly state that they do have WMDs, and are threatening to use them, deserve to be invaded? Your logic would mean that if a rogue state has WMDs and is threatening to use them, they should promptly be invaded, right?
Please answer these questions.
"But the UN is a different matter all together. And as Dick Cheney will tell ya, unilateral sanctions are worthless."
Mulilateral sanctions were worthless. Politically the US could veto any lifting of sanctions or any other punishment. Seems like an awful lot of machinations that only war could solve somehow.
Davebo,
Kenneth Pollack (from the Clinton administratin) warned against the UN weapons inspection route. How does that fit into your little conspiracy?
And since Saddam appears to have used the time for inspections to arm and prepare an insurgent resistance, I wonder how many lives were lost by a few months of inspections.
"And in the end, lets keep in mind when calling him "erratic" that he was right and both you and I were wrong. (I suspected Saddam still had weapons though probably not in the quantities we claimed) and he was right."
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. You may recall Ritter was claiming that there were weapons when he was there in the late 90s, when apparently there were not. So I wouldnt point to him as a very reliable source. Not to mention that he completely flew off the handle when the administration cut him loose and showed all the earmarks of living out a vendetta.
And as to the "Everyone claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat" line.
Colin Powell 2/24/2001
"We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq..."
At one time you could find this on the State Dept. website here. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm
but oddly enough it's been pulled now but nothing ever disapears from the net.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-cairo.htm
Mark
Multilateral sanctions were useless??
So it's your claim that Saddam could have built WMD's under sanctions but didn't want to???
Seriously?
And no, I don't recall Ritter returning in 1998 (assuming this is what you mean by "late nineties" and claiming Saddam still had weapons.
But I'd happily stand corrected if you can collaborate such a claim.
PD
Do you really think that pointing out person X from Y administration claimed Z is productive in the least at this point?
And have you read what Pollack has had to say since then?
Additionally, please explain how you've come to categorize my theory as a "conspiracy". Doesn't sound conspiratorial at all to me, just good old fashioned foreign policy.
"So it's your claim that Saddam could have built WMD's under sanctions but didn't want to???
Seriously?"
Of course. All the programs were in place as you would know if you read the reports. Are you contending that Hussein couldnt have brought in the simple components it takes to makes WMDs when billions of gallons of oil were being smuggled all over the place?
"And no, I don't recall Ritter returning in 1998 (assuming this is what you mean by "late nineties" and claiming Saddam still had weapons.
But I'd happily stand corrected if you can collaborate such a claim."
WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability. There needs to be a careful distinction here. Iraq today is challenging the special commission to come up with a weapon and say where is the weapon in Iraq, and yet part of their efforts to conceal their capabilities, I believe, have been to disassemble weapons into various components and to hide these components throughout Iraq.
I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measure the months, reconstitute chemical biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program.
August 31, 1998
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec98/ritter_8-31.html
Mark,
Sounds to me like Ritter is saying that Iraq has no real weapons but could reconstitute his weapons program if inspections aren't maintained.
But regardless he does point out the threat of Saddam reconsitution of weapons programs and so I duly note your correction.
However I'm still convinced of my basic thesis. And I've seen nothing to discredit it to a serious degree.
Could the US have vetoed a lift of the sanctions at the Security Council? Yes they could have. But I seriously doubt our diplomatic team like the idea of being placed in that situation.
Was it incredibly cumbersome to keep large amounts of troops deployed along Iraqs borders? Yes, but much less expensive than an invasion and occupation as we've seen.
"Sounds to me like Ritter is saying that Iraq has no real weapons but could reconstitute his weapons program if inspections aren't maintained."
What he did say was that Iraq was in violation of the UN resolutions by not disclosing and destroying those weapons programs, which was the entire point.
"Was it incredibly cumbersome to keep large amounts of troops deployed along Iraqs borders? Yes, but much less expensive than an invasion and occupation as we've seen."
I thought you were trying to support your theory, not shoot holes in it.
Do you really think that pointing out person X from Y administration claimed Z is productive in the least at this point.
Where two administrations with opposing world views reach the same conclusion, I am inclined to think that it is quite on point. Is it your view that Saddam succesfully concealed WMD until the 1998 strikes?
And have you read what Pollack has had to say since then?
Yes.
Additionally, please explain how you've come to categorize my theory as a "conspiracy".
That may have been harsh. But conspiratorial in the sense that you have created an elaborate explanation for something quite simple. After a few months of inspections, we learned (a) Saddam was not complying or cooperating and (b) no WMD had been found. This of course doesn't mean that he didn't have them. We are talking about proving a negative. It is quite likely that the same conclusion would have been reached month after month and clearly the Bush administration wanted to untether its policy from this (well-intentioned) trainwreck.
Colin Powell 2/24/2001
A full transcript of Powell's Egyptian Foreign Minister Amre Moussa is here.. The context is that there is a movement at the UN to lift sanctions and the no-fly-zones, which are killing innocent iraqis. Powell is justifying the sanctions in the face of efforts to lift them:
Mark
You brought up Scott Ritter, who hadn't been in country for many years.
I really don't see how his views in 1998 are relevant to the theory given the later unfettered inspections before the war.
And I have no idea how you feel my statement shoots holes in my theory.
There are only two reasons possible I believe for why we forced an end to the last round of inspections. Either we were already committed to war and couldn't afford tactically or economically to wait out the inspection process, or we feared the inspection process could certify Saddam weapons free.
What are you reading into it?
PD Shaw
I take issue with this.
"After a few months of inspections, we learned (a) Saddam was not complying or cooperating and (b) no WMD had been found."
How exactly during the last round of inspections was Saddam not complying or cooperating with the inspectors?
And seriously, do you think even for a minute that if, at that point, Saddam had pulled a nuclear tipped scud out of his arse it would have prevented the invasion?
"You brought up Scott Ritter, who hadn't been in country for many years."
I brought him up because he was the only person I could think of that was claiming with a straight face that Hussein was clean. I then just showed you why even his testimony is completely suspect because while he was actually there he thought there were weapons but years later he suddenly changed his mind.
"And I have no idea how you feel my statement shoots holes in my theory."
Because a war was bound to be far more expensive than the containment, by any metric.
"There are only two reasons possible I believe for why we forced an end to the last round of inspections. Either we were already committed to war and couldn't afford tactically or economically to wait out the inspection process, or we feared the inspection process could certify Saddam weapons free."
Or Bush actually believed Saddam had WMDs (along with 99% of the world) and terrorist ties (which we got right) and handing time and the initiative to such a person is a decidedly dangerous idea. I think Occams razor points to this interpretation.
PD Shaw
I take issue with this.
"After a few months of inspections, we learned (a) Saddam was not complying or cooperating and (b) no WMD had been found."
How exactly during the last round of inspections was Saddam not complying or cooperating with the inspectors?
And seriously, do you think even for a minute that if, at that point, Saddam had pulled a nuclear tipped scud out of his arse it would have prevented the invasion?
As to your link to Powell's comments. There are a heck of a lot of if's there.
And I think the question he was replying to which was not directed at him, remains unanswered even after his comments. Mainly that Powell was trying to have it both ways.
Mark, on this we can agree, well mostly.
"Or Bush actually believed Saddam had WMDs (along with 99% of the world) and terrorist ties (which we got right) and handing time and the initiative to such a person is a decidedly dangerous idea. I think Occams razor points to this interpretation."
Saddam did indeed have ties to terrorists groups.
Not at the same level as most countries in the region, but the ties existed. (I'd offer that using what I believe to be your logic, the Kurds had much stronger terrorist ties but that's neither here nor there.)
Hindsight is always twenty twenty as you know so I have to be very careful when making this argument. But then again, hindsight in this case only applies to you and I. There are many things we now know that our government knew at the time but you and I did not.
Zarqawi and the Pentagons rejected plans to go after him due to "marketing issues" would be one of them.
Along with silently allowing a lot of those billions of barrels of oil to be smuggled and our (and other nations) refusal to fullfill our responsibilities and ensure the Oil for Food program was being honestly administered.
But again, little of this has anything to do with the situation and motivations in the final days running up to the invasion.
It looks like Max ran away in typical leftist cowardice. It appears that he does not want to be caught; that his real reasons for opposing the war are not because of WMDs at all, just rabid anit-Americanism.
______________________
Max,
Answer the following questions :
1) You say that there are no WMDs. Would you support the invasion if we HAD found WMDs? Would that have changed your stance?
2) If you answer 'yes' to the first question, does that mean that Iran and North Korea, which openly state that they do have WMDs, and are threatening to use them, deserve to be invaded? Your logic would mean that if a rogue state has WMDs and is threatening to use them, they should promptly be invaded, right?
Please answer these questions.
________________________
Let me clarify and finalize my initial post.
I think it's highly likely that the powers that be considered the possibility before the invasion that Saddam no longer posed a WMD threat. It might have been a minority opinion at the time, but I have no doubt the possibility was raised (at least I hope like hell it was).
I also believe that the trip to the UN and final round of inspections came about for several reasons but the main one was that we weren't ready to invade yet anyway so why not give it a shot and , if you'll excuse the humor, let the vote go on regardless of the whip count.
But in the end, there was simply no possibility that we would call off the invasion of Iraq regardless of what transpired after the decision was made to invade. And that decision had been made well before we began building up troop levels in preparation.
JC: You simply have the constant conflation of 9-11 and Iraq. Too numerous to mention.
Yeah, Saddam probably never even heard of 9/11. No, wait, this Baghdad mural shows that he did.
A WaPo poll done in 2003 showed that 69% of the public believed Saddam was connected to 9/11, including a solid majority of Democrats. Orbital Mind Control Lasers rule!
Orbital Mind Control Lasers rule!
I know, I really wish I'd fashioned a tinfoil hat before I became a tool of the VRWC.
"Not at the same level as most countries in the region, but the ties existed. (I'd offer that using what I believe to be your logic, the Kurds had much stronger terrorist ties but that's neither here nor there.)"
On the contrary, Hussein had extensive terrorist ties, particularly against those who targetted Americans. Hussein gave an office in Baghdad to Abdul Yasin who helped bomb the World Trade Center, we know that Zarqawi was treated in Baghdad after being wounded in Afghanistan, and Hussein sheltered Abu Nidal, the most wanted terrorist in the world before OBL who blew up Pan Am Flight 103. Thats not even to mention the cash he pumped into Jihad and Hamas. I would call that extensive terrorist ties.
Mark
And the Saudi government hosted a telethon for Palestinian Jihadists. Weeks before Bandar was invited to Crawford for a BBQ.
Wishard
Actually that poll showed that 61% suspected Iraq was involved. But I doubt that's a good way to support the claim that Bush hadn't promoted that idea at all.
Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown University professor of linguistics who has studied Bush's rhetoric, said it is impossible to know but "plausible" that Bush's words furthered such public impressions. "Clearly, he's using language to imply a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11th," she said.
*"There is a specific manipulation of language here to imply a connection." Bush, she said, seems to imply that in Iraq "we have gone to war with the terrorists who attacked us."
Tannen said even a gentle implication would be enough to reinforce Americans' feelings about Hussein. "If we like the conclusion, we're much less critical of the logic," she said.
And of course, the "subliminable message" was pushed yet again in the latest Bush speech.
Most on the right have given up trying to defend the notion that Bush never implicated Saddam in 9/11. It's good to see we have a few true believers left around to quote LGF and show us he never did.
So as it turns out, Saddam did indeed hear about 9/11 and a whole lot of folks heard the president mention 9/11 and Iraq in the same sentence over and over and began to think there might be a connection.
Who'd have thunk it eh?
*"There is a specific manipulation of language here to imply a connection." Bush, she said, seems to imply that in Iraq "we have gone to war with the terrorists who attacked us."
Wow. Georgetown University linguistics professors are now required to be psychic. Who knew?
How exactly during the last round of inspections was Saddam not complying or cooperating with the inspectors?
In January of 2007, Blix stated that Iraq had cooperated on access, but was not allowing scientists to be interviewed unsupervised and was concealing the idenities of others. The inspectors found concealed documents concerning laser enrichment of uranium. Blix characterized this as cooperation in process (as to access), but not complying as to sustance (demonstrating disarmament).
And yes Powell's statements try to have it both ways. To defend the sanction regime, he had to make the case that (a) Saddam posed a threat and (b) the sanctions were needed to contain that threat. If the sanctions contain the threat, how can you say there is a threat? Most people reassessed the external costs of the sanction regime after 9/11.
Stop worrying about the WMD's in Iraq lead us to war, how capable the weapons were or whether or not the weapons could be reconstructed. Just remember that Democratic Presidents have had to find ways to bring our country into preparations for war and war before the public was ready for it(US destroyers actively hunting U-boats prior to Dec 7th, 1941,et al). then it was the Republicans screaming. All of this will to pass. Let us hope fortune smile upon us and we do not have to suffer from suicide bombers before the vast majority of people in the USA get on the band wagon.
Since we are on the issue of lies does anyone at winds of change want to start a discussion about Karl Rove and whether the President is a liar for not firing him.
Hello All,
sorry had to do some work. Nice to see you all were so polite in your responses, at least some of ya.
OK, lets see here- lots of posts to read. I will leave the parsing of strawmen and the definition of lies to others, but will respond to GK-
Illogical leftists (so now I am a "leftist" because I dont agree with you?)
like Max can be defeated very easily by exposing their hypocrisy :
1) Max insists that we were 'lied to' about WMDs, so the war was wrong. (Never said that)
2) Thus, the question to Max is 'Would you support the war IF WMDs were found?'. He would answer 'yes'.
(No I would not- but having real evidence- not photomontages of mobile weapons labs ,ect would help me come to the pro-war camp. But am I pro-war, no. I believe as Churchhill said- "jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war", and remember who said that- Churchill a veteran and the man who stood up to the Nazis- and waged war when it was appropriate)
3) Now, this means that Iran and North Korea, which openly say that they have WMDs, and are threatening to use them, certainly should be invaded, correct? If WMDs are the reason for which we should go to war or not, that would mean that Iran and North Korea should be invaded by that logic, RIGHT?
(No, although they are bigger dangers than Irag ever was but we are now impotent to deal with them due to our campaign in Irag. But if you had to pick a war, I would go with Korea.
4) Max will dodge this gaping contradiction in ashamed silence.
(Sorry. Your "contradiction" seems based on your misguided assumption that I am a peacenik or something, as far as I can gather. A pretty pathertic basis for an arguement. Hope that helps you with your continued education that people can be complicated and hold mutually, to you, conflicting ideas. For example, sometimes war is a nessecary evil and that fact that this war was not one of them. It is just like being a patriot and criticising our government.- Cheers gotta get back to it)
Soory, would have back ealier- had trouble getting teh post to take.
Davebo: Most on the right have given up trying to defend the notion that Bush never implicated Saddam in 9/11.
Most people (left or right) who have paid any attention to the subject are well aware that we do not yet know the whole story of Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to 9/11.
Who is intellectually (and emotionally) committed to an absolute position on this issue? Not George Bush, and not the pro-war left/middle/right.
God my grammar sucks. Ment to say that GK is wrong in saying that I said the war was wrong due to the lies, he drew that conclusion not me. I was simply saying Hawkins made no arguement to say that they were not lies.
Like I said, only had a little time. If you want a full run down for the reasons the Iraq War (what are we calling it now?) was a bad idea and how our admin has done a piss poor job of running it, I am afraid you will have to wait for the book, or just open your eyes.
But dont worry, Iran is arround the corner...
Then China....
Boy, no matter how many times these false interpretations of the events of 2002 and 2003 are batted down, they come up again - they don't die, or they reproduce.
It's like Tribbles meets Chewbacca defense around here...
we do not yet know the whole story of Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to 9/11.
Such as this: A special report on the new evidence of collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.
Please provide an example of President Bush doing so.
Davebo, I don't intend to give up defending the President from false accusations.
Robin: was about to point out that if "the right" has given up, its from exhaustion at dealing with people incapable of proving their claim, but who seem to hope that saying it over and over again or using linguistic handwaving or citing some poll will magically make it true.
John Hawkins' Point #2:
"A study released in March of 2003 by a British medical journal, the Lancet, showed that 100,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the US invasion."
JC (#6) said:
Were the statistics sound? I think so; hard to tell. But statistically sound methods can be applied to the throw of crooked dice. Or they can be misleadingly reported.
The Lancet authors, aided by the Lancet's editors, wrote their findings up so as to make it easy for the reader to be misled. "100,000 Iraqis killed by Americans!" The Lancet's own invited commenter claimed as much. Others have interpreted the authors' published and unpublished data to mean that that about 33,000 Iraqis (outside of Fallujah) were killed in war-related violence in the 18 months of the study.
Although it's escaped notice, I found the lead author's interview by the Socialist Worker to be inadvertantly revealing about the biases that permeated the group's field work.
I commented:
Assuming the data and statistical treatment were correct (the above casts doubt on some of that), and that the authors had wished to inform, they would have said that their necessarily preliminary and inaccurate survey showed that about more 59,000 Iraqis (excluding Fallujah) died from all violence-related causes than they project would have otherwise died in the 18 months following the start of the invasion. That would include airstrikes, Army gunfire, jihadis, mujahadeen, tribal feuds, bandits, unknown killers--all of it.
So while I don't wholly agree with Hawkins' full characterization of the Lancet article, I'm claiming that it was political theater as much as science. The "100,000 dead" catch-phrase that the authors and the editors trumpeted was intended to mislead the US public on the eve of a Presidential election.
Well said, Patrick.