I never said YOU called me a coward. I said I was called a coward.
It was in this post, which refers to the “Sir Robin” minstrel song in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” in which Sir Robin’s retreats are mocked as cowardice.
Now - when did I call you, or anyone, a traitor?
The conscious and deliberate desire to do wrong, in matters of grave importance.
Define “wrong” and “grave importance” for us, then - before you try to squirm out of saying that’s what Bush did, that is.
Wrong means an injurious, unfair, or unjust act, contrary to established principles, practices, justice, goodness, equity, or law.
“Grave importance” refers to matters of significantly serious moral, ethical, or legal weight.
By that definition, Hitler wasn’t evil. He genuinely thought he was doing the right thing for Germany. He did not have a conscious and deliberate desire to do wrong.
Connect the dots for us now, O Wise One. Is a President misleading his people into a war na “injurious, unfair or unjust act”? Is a war a “matter of significantly serious moral, ethical, or legal weight”?
You think Hitler really thought the Jews were the source of all Germany’s ills?
I don’t. I think he knew he was picking a scapegoat. That was a deliberate act.
But if you’re right… then I’d say he was simply mentally unbalanced, not evil. But I don’t think you’re right.
Deliberately misleading? Yes. “Misled” in the sense that he believed infomration that turned out to be untrue? No.
Yes.
I am just as tired as all you guys are.
The ONE reason it is so easy to completely and irrevocably disregard these types of things is simply that. There are so many freaking charges out there that ARE indeed inspired by “mere irrational Bush-hatred” make it a simple thing to totally disregard anything and everything out of the peanut gallery.
I’m no Bush fan but I’ll be damn if even I am going “would you just shut the fuck up about Iraq already”
I am one of those people that think ‘we already made the mistake so lets try and do the best we can to make it better’
Revisionist history is nice and all but I don’t see any time machine available to go back in time and elect (insert non GWB candidate here). Do you?
Yet, given that he could have found out if it were true, and could have prevented it being filtered to tell him what he wanted to hear, how is that not an injurious or unfair or unjust act? Of course it is. You do know better
Therefore, following your own definitions, the conclusion would be what? That the staff ate his homework?
No, but what we need to do is learn how to learn from our mistakes. We keep making the same mistakes over again without learning from them. By slashing to death what went wrong with the war while it’s still fresh, we can learn (hopefully) how to avoid this in the future.
We did try to tell you before the last election. Why weren’t you listening?
Of course! The dog! That explains everything!
See, GeeDubya was about to make his State of the Union speech, and the intel guys sent him an urgent memo saying, like, “Don’t talk about the yellow cake! It ain’t so! And that guy, Chalabi, gonna sit next to your old lady? A lying sack, better have somebody bag him and make up an excuse, whatever you gotta do. Miniature golf later? George T.”
And they put it right on his desk for him to see, but the dog came in, and, mistaking the memo for ground up cow rectums and offal…ate it! So poor ol’ GeeDubya, in sublime innocence, went right ahead and made the speech. Heck, how was he supposed to know, wasn’t his fault!
And that IAEA report that he cited as proof positive, the one that never existed? Well, GeeDubya thought it existed, but when nobody could find it, he naturally assumed that the dog had given it the Alpo Treatment!
Sure! That’s it! All we gotta do now is interrogate the dog (Paging Pvt. Englund! Pvt. Englund, please report to the White House…) and we can get to the bottom of all this and completely exonerate the poor, misjudged…he is? The dog is dead?
Must have been something he ate.
I’m referring to the mistakes made by all the data collectors and the data interpreters. And by the Pres and his people. I’m not ready to point the blame directly on the head of the POTUS. I will cling to the belief that the intentions were correct given the data that we had at the time regarding the alleged dangers of/in Iraq. What came to light during the war doesn’t justify my opponents anti-war (pre-war) stance. I consider it a lucky guess. We all had the same information pre-war. You chose to downplay the significance of the WMDs and were correct in hindsight.
You’re really, really good at Twister, right?
Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
I swear to god I didn’t preview before I posted. elucidator’s well timed post (that he snuck in before my response to Elvis), can only be explained by his acute omnipotence. I am in your service.
Alas, no. They are condemned to make the rest of us repeat it.
Like I said to you when you called yourself whuckfistle, fuck you. I did my homework. There was nothing at all about my pre-war stance about WMD evidence that was guesswork.
Fuck you,
Steven
Torture: Evil or no?
That’s the man you voted for. Implemented torture.