Using it just for gloating isn’t cool, that’s for sure. However, the lies about WMDs are an important part of the ongoing debate over Iraq and hence an important part of the 2004 election debate. It’s not just gloating.
How is it important for the election, especially here? I’m prety sure that with a month to go everyone knows who they’re voting for, and attempting to change the mind of someone like Mr. Moto or Brutus is an exercise in futility.
And now all you have to do is show me where anyone is still claiming that the WMDs existed (other than my wishful thinking in the post above) and I’ll not walk away from this with my sincere apologies. I haven’t seen ANYONE claiming that the WMDs are somewhere to be found in a long time. It’s a dead issue.
But by all means, flog the dead horse amongst yourselves.
Pardon me. I WILL wak away from this thread with sincere apologies if you can demonstrate to me that someone is still banging the WMD drum.
The Syrian end of it at least. Here’s John Bolton on September 16th:
Syria’s Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missile Development Programs
I meant someone here at the SDMB. I’m sure the esteemed Mr. Bolton is not participating here, and therefore is not the target of RedFury’s angst.
Well, Brutus might be a tough sell, but I still hold out hope for Mr Moto. Call me an optimist. There are a lot of honest conservatives out there who just plain do not like the Bush administration, and I believe talking about systematic deception in order to take the nation to war is a topic which might resonate.
I do think that the propagation of phoney information about Iraqi WMDs has had major impacts on other, greater threats to the world. These threats include those with proven nuclear capabilities, such as North Korea and Pakistan, who may be selling material and expertise onwards. By crying wolf over Iraq, diverting military and intelligence capacity towards it and squandering diplomatic capital on defending the indefensible, the Bush adminstration has reduced the US’s capacity to deal with these real threats. The lies have had, and will continue to have, colossal knock-on effects.
There is no “victory” until the scoundrels who lied about the WMDs – which subsequently drove the United States into an unnecessary and meaningless war that has resulted in thousands of people dead and many times more permanently maimed – have been exposed to the searing sunlight of truth, and their names forever thrice-damned in history as the immoral bastards that they are.
Oh, for the love of…
No, OF COURSE not. It was just a joke. I just thought it would be funny, since you were laying it on so thick praise-wise. You know, in a “If you like him so much why don’t you marry him” kind of way. I didn’t even know your gender; how could it possibly have anything to do with homosexuality? For all I knew, you’re a woman and Mr. S is a man. I don’t even know that Mr. S is a man, for that matter, since women sometimes have male-sounding user names. I happen to like Mr. S’s contributions to this forum a lot. It was just a harmless joke relating to the fact that your OP was a little on the toadying side (and that’s of course not to say that Mr. S is not praiseworthy).
I am someone who supported military force to remove Saddam from power - a dictator who had no qualms about the destruction of Iraqis. I am, at the same time, a democrat who did not vote for Bush in 2000, and will not vote for him next month.
While I agree that Saddam had to go, I am offended that GWB felt he had to lie about WMD, about ‘Iraqi involvement’ :rolleyes: in 9/11 and the ‘war on terrorism’ to get my support.
Mr. Bush, do you really think I’m so stupid as to observe your military actions in Iraq and think that you have a coherent ‘strategy’ as to how to leave the country more stable, and more democratic than we found it? I didn’t believe at the time that there were ** OMG SO THREATENING** weapons of mass destruction to be found, but thought that Saddam needed to go. Since then, you’ve not been able to present a coherent plan of withdrawl, nor a plan that even has a prayer of reaching stability in the Middle East, nor even been able to cajole the UN into helping the US. I am left to the conclusion that Bush is one of the most … incoherent presidents with regards to foreign policy ever.
I totally agree with the rest of your post, but I just wanted to clarify something regarding this first sentence. I don’t think any of us wanted Saddam to stay in power. But those of us who opposed this war did so because we believed that the way Bush was going about it was ill-advised, not because we approved of Saddam. And I think the current mess we find ourselves in has borne out the idea that it was the wrong way to do it.
Actually it is always a mystery to me. A large section of the most reliable votes for Bush come from people he plainly despises.
Bah! While I’m certain Mr. Svinlesha is overjoyed that should he ever have a need to get his cock sucked or arse kissed you’d be there on a tick with a “shank sou gulp anything else sir?” – what specifically is it you loathe about open discussion that you feel an irresistible urge to start a pit thread at the mere suggestion of a view not your own? Is it that you think SDMB would be better off without the likes of Sam Stone, Scylla, and Shodan and their audacity to think what you do not? Perhaps you think what is needed is more rjungs and readers, bush-the-chimp jokes and Halliburton stupidity? Meanwhile outside your yes-me-too utopian dream, perhaps we can agree that until this, perhaps surprisingly large, percentage of Americans who think the war was justified have been re-educated, discussing it is a good thing?
What the fuck is about people who can’t have a discussion on a discussion board without rushing out to open pit-threads at the slightest disagreements? Fucking moron. Knep en ged! Vas te faire enculer!
For the 7, 838th time…he didn’t “feel” he had to lie, he didn’t contrive to lie, and he didn’t lie!
What is the matter with you people? Are you like Michael Moore on O’Reilly’s show and claiming Bush lied because he said something that, contrary to all evidence, “wasn’t so,” and therefore, ipso facto, he lied? Or are you still claiming that he deliberately and cunningly decided to concoct a lie just to get the gullible American people to play along while he went charging off to avenge daddy?
For crying out loud! Russia thought he had WMD; the British thought he had WMD; every country in the Middle East thought he had WMD; the U frickin’ N thought he had WMD; the FBI thought he had WMD; the CIA thought he had WMD; and Bill Clinton himself, as he has recently stated, thought Hussein had WMD.
But no! Bush was smarter than all of them and knew better, but he decided that since everyone thought Hussein had WMD anyway, what a perfect time to get even for daddy and make Halliburton rich.
What a load of hooey!!!
(And spare me the “France knew they didn’t have WMD” argument. France knew no such thing. They were playing the “Iraq hasn’t been proven to have WMD” card so they could continue business as usual with Hussein and so they could be perceived as standing up to the U.S.)
Oppose Bush if you want and all you want, but when you pull out this “Bush lied to get us into war” talk, you sound like a close-minded partisan automoton.
Oh, sorry, Mr. Svin. I forgot what thread I was in. I know you hate the term “WMD” and I’m sorry to inflict it on you so many times in one post. Had I remembered this wasn’t yet another Bush-bashing thread but one dedicated to you, I would have tried phrasing my post differently.
Regards. 
Of course he did — just like Copernicus lied about Mars’ orbit, and Newton lied about the absoluteness of time. And don’t forget those lying NY radio disc jockeys just after sunrise on 9/1/01. Beautiful day my ass.
Non sequitur.
That is not why people say he lied. Got that?
Here, I’ll repeat. It is not the saying “I believe…”
It is the “I know…”.
Any questions?
Of course not. Morons. Yes you too Liberal.
Then of course, there are the other documented Bush lies. But go vote for him, he’s a man after your own heart.
They all thought it was possible. They all were honest enough to admit they didn’t know for sure. That’s what the inspections were all about, remember? The ones Bush wouldn’t allow three damn more weeks to be completed when it was already pretty clear what the findings would be?
Oh yeah, Bush thought Iraq had WMD’s. Woulda been nice to have actually paid some attention to those sites when the troops got there, instead of letting them be looted first, wouldn’t it? Which is that, simple numbing incompetence, or already knowing there was no shit there anyway? There aren’t any other possibilities, are there?
Are you in favor of being as sure as possible of the facts before you send people off to get killed, or are you simply a blind partisan? Before you answer, note that this board is about *fighting * ignorance.
[/QUOTE]
Airman,
As others have already mentioned, this thread has nothing to do with “gloating” but rather with the unfinished task of Fighting Ignorance – willful or otherwise.
As it happens, there are still plenty of people out there – and here – defending the pack of lies that led to the bloody quagmire in Iraq. Why just this past week, both Chaney and Rice vigorously argued in favor of such debunked Bushit as Saddam’s ties to AQ and the validity of the aluminum tubes evidence. Just the kind of thing that resonates with the locksteppers here.
Mind you, this isn’t just about the WMDs, but rather an all-encompassing indictment to those that still feel the need to defend the Bush Administration and their pack of demonstrable lies. Nothing in the “past” about that since they continue to do so to this very day. And considering that the upcoming election is likely to affect th erest of the world like no other US election in my lifetime, you betcha, I’ll do everything possible to keep it front and center, reminding those that need reminding and exposing those that need exposing, of all the lies and misrepresentations that have led us to this point.
To wit:
Indeed. That is exactly what you’re full of. Because as sevatopol has already pointed out, there’s a vast difference between “thinking” Iraq had WMDs, and leading an invasion under the certainty that not only they did, but that they “presented an imminent threat,” to the US of A.
Both of which are flat out fuckin’ LIES now, as much as they were LIES when they were first uttered.
And if a lying weasel such as yourself wants to get into the specifics of any of the claims, well, right here is as good a place as any.
Bring it on, Big Boy! Plenty of Weapons of Massive Truth on this side.
Rune, did you remember to shave your skull this morning? No? Good litttle soldier.
– September 25, 2002
Plenty more where that came from.
Yeah, I got one. Was Hillary Clinton lying when she said this?
(Emphasis mine.)