gobear, done.
::::shakes::::
Now we need to start working on a solution. To be honest, I don’t know that I can think of one that doesn’t involve a lot more blood shedding.
Which in turn makes me angry all over again with this whole clusterfuck.
What hasn’t been said before?
As Airman pointed out, it’s a question of good or bad faith.
Our subject was extremely vocal about the general tenor of objective evidence which supported a particular case.
Knowing well before the general public, the contents of David Kay’s findings; what would a person of integrity have done given freedom to discuss the general tenor of evidence. I leave this question open.
Instead it seems to there was a flameout of the board:
- maintaining to be true what the evidence now showed to be otherwise
- insulting those who had by honest application of their faculties come close to the truth of the matter
- not facing the music, after having explicitly put his integrity on the line
- returning to the board in the expectation of, what exactly?
So I disagree with Airman & RTFirefly in their view that this pit is redundant or repetitive.
However I agree with their conclusion that enough has been said.
Yes, of course it does. Do you imagine that the entirety of those Iraqis who answered that they were better off now than a year ago would now answer “no,” merely two months after the poll, and merely a month after it was released? Do you have a similarly independent source more recent than it to judge by, or are you hysterically judging by the subjectively-culled anecdotal evidence you see on the news?
I thought so.
Even if we have had setbacks in the past half-month or so, big deal. That’s what war is. You push, the enemy finds a sore spot and pushes back. You react and counter-attack. There’s a ceasefire in Fallujah as we speak.
You are the one asserting you have “earned the right” to tell the rest of us what we should and should not discuss and I am telling you that youi have no right, earned or not, to tell me what I can discuss here. When I see “moderator” under your name then I will consider you have that right but, in the meanwhile, you can go take a long walk on a short pier.
An interesting post. On the one hand, you will not accept that the survey has been rendered irrelevant by changed circumstance, in the absence of a new poll. On the other hand, you’re willing to suggest that because maybe “the entirety of those Iraqis” haven’t changed their minds, therefore the poll results are still valid.
You actually do acknowledge that circumstances have changed in the rest of your post. I guess you do get at least some information through either the regular news or through blogs or whatever.
In particular, you note that there’s been a “setback”, and you use the word “war” in the present tense. Both of which contrast markedly with your meticulous avoidance of such terms and the promotion of rosy projections only a month ago in this thread.
Perhaps you imagine yourself as some rational, scientific observer and commentator on events. I think you’re simply delusional.
Nope still doesn’t hit the mark. I could think of an equivilent for a lot of other nationalities that my work mates would understand immediately.
You can slag off other nationalities using stereotypes without hating them. Big humourless Germans for example. Aussies working in bars as they are bred for bar work and on and on….
Try again.
Too busy bolstering his facts?
New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq
Perhaps you’re right, maybe it’s beating a dead horse. But until Bluesman explains how he was so wrong, or simply apologizes, there’s going to be no sense of closure on this issue.
It’s not just wanting to make him eat his words. I think it’s important to try and find out what happened here. I’m hoping that he could explain, at least in very general terms so there’s no security problems, how he was fooled so completely.
The more we understand what happened here, the greater chance people won’t be fooled again in similar situations. Maybe his “inside knowledge” will still turn out to be useful, at least for this. It may be a rare and valuable opportunity.
In a thread whose theme is the reliability of a source on WMD, you might think twice about citing Aljazeerah, particularly one annotated as “Published on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 by the Mehr News Agency (Tehran, Iran)”. These are sources that don’t even * pretend * to be objective.
Actually, one thing that’s conveniently forgotten in all this bickering is that numerous WMD-doubters asserted that even if WMDs did not exist, the administration would be planting convenient evidence all over Iraq, so we would never know the truth. But that’s one thing I haven’t seen happen – the administration has been pretty open about their findings, or lack of any.
As long as we’re posting cites of dubious authenticity, what do people think about the thwarted chemical bombing in Jordan? The details are annoyingly vague, but speculation is that the chemicals came from Syria, possibly from stockpiles imported from Iraq. But there’s definitely not enough information to make any conclusions whatsoever.
[QUOTE=Revtim]
Perhaps you’re right, maybe it’s beating a dead horse. But until Bluesman explains how he was so wrong, or simply apologizes, there’s going to be no sense of closure on this issue.
It’s not just wanting to make him eat his words. I think it’s important to try and find out what happened here. I’m hoping that he could explain, at least in very general terms so there’s no security problems, how he was fooled so completely.
[QUOTE]
I think that’s a decent motivation for raising the question. I still think the manner of raising it is far from the best; there’s really no indication that Bluesman is following this forum, no indication that he knows a question’s being addressed to him. Email strikes me as more appropriate for that reason.
I’m not sure there’s frequently a sense of ‘closure’ in a debate around here. Threads drop off the front page of the forum when everybody finally gets tired of the argument. I think that’s about as much closure as we can expect.
I guess I might have to start adding a disclaimer to my posts for the hard-of-comprension.
Something like, “These are my opinions, no matter how strongly held or expressed. In no way should they be regarded as God-like assertions of right, authority, or whatever.”
But this being the Straight Dope Message Board, where the vast majority of posters can distinguish between (on the one hand) a claim of moral right to have a strongly-held opinion be taken seriously, and the right of command (on the other), I think I’ll pass on that disclaimer and continue infuriating patzers who can’t tell the difference.
I agree there will likely be no closure. But I disagree that this should be handled via email; it should be handled on the board or nowhere. People shouldn’t have to worry about being harrassed via email whenever they debate on the board.
Of all the world leaders who claimed there wasn’t evidence to merit a pre-emptive attack, Jean Chretien ( former PM of Canada) put it most succinctly:
How can you possibly reconcile the above with this:
Two posts in a row that aren’t even in agreement.
-Joe
So who’s got the better track record with facts on the ground, the guys claiming objective truths, or the “biased” muckrakers? By being so miserably wrong, and failing to explain the reasons they were so miserably wrong, those who claimed that they knew Saddam had WMD’s are legitimizing these other sources of news.
Nonsense. I excoriate know-nothing, knee-jerk, anti-American sentiment one finds in the far left that always condemns any action by the US military or government reflexively. However, if we in America return Bush to office, then the left and other detractors will be able to feel fully justified in their contempt for the stupidity of the American middle.
They do not contracdict each other.
So, if the American people, now armed with the facts elect GWB again, they’re fools. Fools for believing all the bullshit.
Meanwhile, Bluesman, one of the people who pushed that bullshit (and venomously defended said bullshit when people didn’t believe it out of hand) deserves no abuse?
He heaped it onto people for disagreeing with him. Would you really like to see a list of example quotes? Is it really necessary?
To re-aim your own words, peope are “excoriating a know-it-all, knee-jerk, America is omniscient sentiment one finds in the far right that codones any action by the US military or government reflexively.”
Personally, I agree with you that sailor is probably the most anti-American American on this board, and one of the most overall (ignoring such wastes of skin such as Aldebaran and Henry B) on the SDMB. His continuing mantra of “America bad” wears on my nerves, too.
That doesn’t change the fact that Bluesman was wrong. Flamingly, assholingly, raging-prickingly wrong. He argued from authority claiming that he was the authority. Do you know another poster that does that? I’ll give you a hint - it’s even in his sig.
People disagreed with his posts and got attacked. He wasn’t insulting their positions, but them. But now, because you’ve met the guy, it’s wrong for people to insult him? Sorry, homey, it doesn’t work like that.
He’s the one who made it personal with the attacks. I’m guessing this thread has come up now because Bluesman has now registered as a Charter Member. That means he’s back, and has at least bothered to pay his money to participate in the board. Besides that, it’s been almost a year. In case you don’t remember the progression, we started out with “We need to get into Iraq to grab those WMDs”, progressed through “Iraq is a big country, but we’re certain there’s WMDs”, and finally ended up with, “We’re certain that we’ll find some WMD-related program-like activities.”
The short version of that is: Time’s up.
Speaking of which, I don’t believe sailor ever answered my Iraqi Children/GWB hypothetical…
-Joe