Bricker: Got A Second?

The BBQ Pit
201

**Mr. Svinlesha **: And in the face of that, you think I’m being unreasonable?

Every issue always has two sides. WMD and Iraq is no exception. I haven’t followed the issue so closely because it never was all that important to me, but I’m sure you have been reasonable in those threads because you always came across to me as a person who was fairly reasonable (or at least meticulous with the data). I was judging solely on this thread only which I admit I’ve only skimmed at best but where you come with some fairly inflexible statements.
…skimming… “typical rhetorical tactics from the right” : tarring everybody on the right much? Surely you can agree such generalizations don’t exactly reek of respect for political otherwise thinking.
…skimming…“And I do not believe that Sam has shifted so much as an inch leftwards since I first met him.” : yeah? And so? Like shifting an iota to the left is a measure of reason and a sane mind. Only works if you consider “the left” to be The True And Only Path. But I propose we leave religion at the door.
…skimming…“Bush lied us into a war” : you completely rule out that he was simply mistaken? Seems to me Occams razor might be wielded with benefit here.
…skimming…“The Bush administration, Fox News, and the right in general seek to ”muddy the waters.” They want to reduce some facts to the status of opinion, and elevate some opinions to the status of fact.” : What everybody in the Bush administration, Fox channel and the right in general? The whole fucking shebang? Smearing much? Perhaps a tiny bit overgeneralization? Tinfoil-hat conspiracy territory even? Well I’m on the right I suppose, and we are not amused.

Though surely you’re nowhere near the rush to vilify everybody with whom you disagree, as certain other posters have done. I do wonder what people like RedFury (& apparently Hentor) who seem to think everybody he disagrees with are little nasty and evil gnomes out to soil the virginal truth of the correct leftist lore are doing here in the first place. On a debating board, where by its very nature belief that the other side are not evil or even necessarily wrong – merely has a different view, is the basis of all debating. I’m sure other places would be more open to such proselyting of the eternal truth.

Personally I would be more impressed if everybody listed the posters they disagrees with and simultaneously respected, instead of those they disagrees with and considered jerks (or what was the word RedFury?: lying pieces of shit) Or the politicians you disagree with and still had respect for. Hey, I’ll start by nominating SentientMeat (a red bastard for sure, but a levelheaded such) and Jacques Chirac (a lousy frog, but oh never afraid of being so goddamn French…amour violent heh!)

Anyway I’ll go ramble some place else and leave you to it. These naval gazing threads are the pits.

202

Let’s see if we can get this completely straight, once and for all. You have made this sort of sweeping statement in the past, and then changed your mind for a while (before you changed it back). So please be sure and say what you mean.

So, true or false: No weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, after the invasion by the US.

True or false: No evidence was ever found that Saddam was trying to conceal programs to develop WMD.

True or false: The Dulfer report stated that it would have been many years before Saddam would have been able to start producing WMDs.

True or false: Saddam never possessed WMDs at any time, nor showed any reason to believe that he would use them if he did.

True or false: Saddam “bent over backwards” to accomodate the inspection regime thru out its entire history.

True or false: George Bush is the only President to engage in military action against Iraq based on a belief that Iraq possessed WMDs.

True or false: George Bush is absolutely unique in that he is the only one to believe that Iraq presented a danger to the rest of the world by virtue of its possession of WMDs.

And here’s an easy one: True or false: Saddam was never found to be “in material breach” of the inspection regime.

I’ll make a deal with you - answer the quiz, and I will go ahead and prepare my shot at a best case against the invasion.

Regards,
Shodan

203

Bricker:

Too many people speak too highly of you for me to throw you into the same category as posters like Sam or Shodan. Truth is, I don’t think we’ve ever crossed paths and I honestly don’t know if you belong in that gang or not.

But let me ask you this – do you think that I have a valid point? Do you think that those of us who opposed the war had any valid arguments at all? Can you understand that I do think that Bush lied about “WMDs,” that this is an eminently reasonable point of view, and that my distaste for the Bush administration – as well as its minions here on this board – is entirely understandable, given that belief?

One other question, while we’re at it:

Upon what do you base this opinion, specifically?
Rune:

Issues do indeed have sides. But facts? Does every statement of fact have two sides as well?

There are no “WMDs” in Iraq, and there were none in the period directly prior to the war. Are there two sides to this fact?

Which is why I am on the verge of leaving, really. Because I’m sorry to have to say it, but those are typical rhetorical tactics from the right, and Sam is a master of them. Now, I’m not saying that you necessarily employ those tactics on a regular basis, but I am saying that the majority of pro-Bush posters on these boards do employ such tactics. I’m saying that it is very common in right-wing commentary that one reads on the net and sees on TV. Very, very common.

Not so. You may have noticed that I prefaced my observations by noting that my experiences here had led me to move rightwards in my view of the world, which I believe was a good thing. But the point is that if one is capable of learning from experience, then the experience of having your ass handed to you on a platter time and again, because of the extreme right-wing nature of your views, ought to have an effect, eventually.

You know, the actual purpose of the aluminum tubes isn’t a matter for partisan debate. They have a use, period, regardless of whether the person looking at them, or discussing them, is an ardent communist or a yellow-dog capitalist. Simon X is an ardent conservative, but he doesn’t deny the evidence of his senses.

It is my view that Bush (and other members of the administration) flatly lied to the American public about the threat posed by Hussein’s regime. Some people want to argue that he “overstated his case” and so forth. I find this to be a dodge based on the fact that, at the end of the day, it’s literally impossible to prove intent.

But let’s take the aluminum tubes as an example, and the statement made by Condoleeza Rice that they were only really suitable for use as uranium centrifuges. Now, we know at the very least that this statement is wrong. But did she lie?

Well, of course, I can’t prove she did. But here we have Ms. Rice, National Security Adviser, with a whole staff devoted to helping her keep abreast of the latest developments. The expertise of entire bureaucracies is at her fingertips. She is the best and the brightest America has to offer, occupying one of the most important offices in the government. She has access to all classified information. If she wants to know about those tubes, all she has to do is make a phone call: a report will land on her desk in the morning.

And here is Mr. Svinlesha, a humble psychotherapist eeking out a meager existence among moose and telephone systems on a godforsaken ball of frozen rock, a stone’s throw away from the Artic Circle. His only contact with the outside world is his internet connection, and that doesn’t work half the time, because the power lines freeze over. He has to get up half an hour before he goes to bed, and that sort of thing. He possesses no technical expertise whatsoever. Yet he sits down in front of his computer one day, and in the space of a few of hours surfing is able to correctly determine that the aluminum tubes were not suitable for use as uranium centrifuges.

Can you really sit there, with your face hanging off the side of your neck, and in all honesty tell me that you believe she merely made a mistake?

204

Shodan:

No weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, after the invasion by the US.

True.

*No evidence was ever found that Saddam was trying to conceal programs to develop WMD. *

False.

*The Dulfer report stated that it would have been many years before Saddam would have been able to start producing WMDs. *

Don’t know, haven’t read the Dulfer report yet.

*Saddam never possessed WMDs at any time, nor showed any reason to believe that he would use them if he did. *

That’s two questions. Answers: 1) False. If by “use them” you mean, use them against his own people, then 2) is False. If by “use them” you mean use them against the US, the answer is True.

*Saddam “bent over backwards” to accomodate the inspection regime thru out its entire history. *

False, of course.

*George Bush is the only President to engage in military action against Iraq based on a belief that Iraq possessed WMDs. *

True.

*George Bush is absolutely unique in that he is the only one to believe that Iraq presented a danger to the rest of the world by virtue of its possession of WMDs. *

False.

*Saddam was never found to be “in material breach” of the inspection regime. *

False, as I’ve already indicated.

*I’ll make a deal with you - answer the quiz, and I will go ahead and prepare my shot at a best case against the invasion. *

Better get cracking. An attempt to argue, as honestly and strenuously as you can, that the US should not have invaded Iraq, using those arguments against military invasion you find most compelling.

205

As someone in another, similar thread said recently… I’m so glad we finally have a thread to debate the justification of the Iraq War.

Good luck guys! Let us know who wins!

206

[Wild applause]

All right, Mr. and Ms. America, welcome to Shodan’s First Annual Post-Thanksgiving Festival of WeaselThink! Our game is simple: how do you think Shodan will win his quiz? Precisely what form of tortured logic and twisted rhetorical devices will he employ to support an entirely bankrupt set of contentions? Any number can play, our phone lines are open!

Our first caller is the celebrated author of I Fell Off the Brooklyn Bridge, Ms. Ilene Dover!

ID: Well, 'Lucy, I think…

E. Don’t call me that.

ID: Sorry. 'luce, I think that the first question is the easiest! Shodan intends to bring up that one forlorn cannon shell that was shown to have traces of what may have been sarin gas, despite the flimsiness of the evidence and the near certainty that such a shell would have been entirely useless. He will then claim that this one pathetic instance is the same as the “vast stockpiles” that GeeDubya claimed Saddam possessed…

E.: All right, lets check on that. Shodan, is that substantially correct? Is that the form of WeaselThink you intended to employ?

Shodan Well, point of fact, that one shell is the only physical evidence found thus far, but clearly demonstrates the existence of “vast stockpiles”, since “vast stockpiles” is a ballpark figure and…

(Ding, ding, ding…)

E.: We have a winner! We will send Ms. Dover $5 US and a brand new copy of Twister, the party game preferred by WeaselThinkers worldwide…

ID: Could I have that in Euros, please. Mail service takes about three days and by that time…

E.: No, you can’t. All right, one caller, one winner! Who’s next, our phone lines are open and our operators are standing by!..

207

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

208

Nope, sorry - that one is false. Sarin gas is a weapon of mass destruction. Do I need to produce the same cite I gave you the last time we went around and around on this?

Correct!

Also false. It stated that Saddam could have started producing nerve gas within a few months.

Both false.

Correct! Very good, you remembered from the thread I linked to earlier.

Whoops, sorry - wrong. Clinton is the other. See “Operation Desert Fox” for details.

Good, also correct.

Correct.

Watch this space - I will see what I can get out over the weekend.

Regards,
Shodan

209

You talking about that dinky shell that went off in the faces of our soldiers and made them sneeze a few times?

That 'ol inert thing?

In the immortal words of Sho 'nuff

“nigga please”

210

Of course. The fact of the matter is, the President said - emphatically - that something was true, and it turned out not to be true. If that doesn’t invite an inference of lying, I don’t know what would.

So - yes, it’s a very reasonable point of view to say that Mr. Bush lied, and – even if he were mistaken, the justification for the war can reasonably be called questionable. The war in Iraq amounted to a pre-emptive strike, something unique in this nation’s history. It did not meet the classic criteria for a “just war.” So I can easily understand opposition to the war on many grounds.

That’s a lot of typing. In general, it became clear that there were conflicting intelligence reports; Mr. Bush resolved the conflict in favor of WMD existence. While this was ultimately wrong, it was not wholly unsupportable.

  • Rick

Rune:Issues do indeed have sides. But facts? Does every statement of fact have two sides as well?

There are no “WMDs” in Iraq, and there were none in the period directly prior to the war. Are there two sides to this fact?Which is why I am on the verge of leaving, really. Because I’m sorry to have to say it, but those are typical rhetorical tactics from the right, and Sam is a master of them. Now, I’m not saying that you necessarily employ those tactics on a regular basis, but I am saying that the majority of pro-Bush posters on these boards do employ such tactics. I’m saying that it is very common in right-wing commentary that one reads on the net and sees on TV. Very, very common.Not so. You may have noticed that I prefaced my observations by noting that my experiences here had led me to move rightwards in my view of the world, which I believe was a good thing. But the point is that if one is capable of learning from experience, then the experience of having your ass handed to you on a platter time and again, because of the extreme right-wing nature of your views, ought to have an effect, eventually.

You know, the actual purpose of the aluminum tubes isn’t a matter for partisan debate. They have a use, period, regardless of whether the person looking at them, or discussing them, is an ardent communist or a yellow-dog capitalist. Simon X is an ardent conservative, but he doesn’t deny the evidence of his senses.It is my view that Bush (and other members of the administration) flatly lied to the American public about the threat posed by Hussein’s regime. Some people want to argue that he “overstated his case” and so forth. I find this to be a dodge based on the fact that, at the end of the day, it’s literally impossible to prove intent.

But let’s take the aluminum tubes as an example, and the statement made by Condoleeza Rice that they were only really suitable for use as uranium centrifuges. Now, we know at the very least that this statement is wrong. But did she lie?

Well, of course, I can’t prove she did. But here we have Ms. Rice, National Security Adviser, with a whole staff devoted to helping her keep abreast of the latest developments. The expertise of entire bureaucracies is at her fingertips. She is the best and the brightest America has to offer, occupying one of the most important offices in the government. She has access to all classified information. If she wants to know about those tubes, all she has to do is make a phone call: a report will land on her desk in the morning.

And here is Mr. Svinlesha, a humble psychotherapist eeking out a meager existence among moose and telephone systems on a godforsaken ball of frozen rock, a stone’s throw away from the Artic Circle. His only contact with the outside world is his internet connection, and that doesn’t work half the time, because the power lines freeze over. He has to get up half an hour before he goes to bed, and that sort of thing. He possesses no technical expertise whatsoever. Yet he sits down in front of his computer one day, and in the space of a few of hours surfing is able to correctly determine that the aluminum tubes were not suitable for use as uranium centrifuges.

Can you really sit there, with your face hanging off the side of your neck, and in all honesty tell me that you believe she merely made a mistake?
[/QUOTE]

211

That was just confusing as all get out. Somehow Bricker and Big Svin got into the transmorgifier at the same instance, and they were genetically interminged to produce that post.

(PS: stay away from spider webs, the both of you…)

212

The “honest mistake” scenario presumes that GeeDubya was given conflicting sets of information/disinformation and, after earnest and rigourous examination, made the wrong, but entirely reasonable, choice.

This is wrong. Boy, is that wrong. So wrong.

First off, it wasn’t simply a decision, it was a series of decisive acts, any one of which could have been reversed, at any time. For months preceding the actual war, decisions made leading to war were made over and over.

A useful comparison: Kennedy and the Cuban missiles. Kennedy determined that the threat was beyond unacceptable, dire. He applied military threat and diplomacy toward the end of neutralizing that threat. He achieved his end. He made it entirely clear that he was willing, if necessary, to commit to war. But he also made it abundantly clear that he would take any reasonable accomodation. He didn not want to go to war, and was willing to make any effort to avoid doing so. But there was no doubt he would have done if he had to.

Compare that to GeeDubya. Kennedy made his moves and decisions in matters of days, GeeDubya had months to review the question, to sift the information. Yet, did anyone here doubt that war was the object? Few of us did, even those who argued in support of his policy didn’t try to pretend that wasn’t the policy. It was clear early on that, barring some dramatic development, GeeDubya was going to war with Iraq.

Note Woodwards anecdote, about how GeeDubya stuck his head in Condi Rices office in March 2002 and announced his intention to “take him out (Saddam)”. This was in Woodward’s book, and was, so far as I know, never denied by the White House, even as it continued to make public declaration of having no such determined intention.

So why didn’t they contradict Woodward? Because they liked it! They liked seeing GeeDubya portrayed as the resolute leader who thinks from his gut feelings. And they like that because they were sure that they were right. Geeubya never suffered doubt, and said as much.

Kennedy met a possible threat with sincere diplomacy, matched with an equally sincere threat, to an end that he deemed necessary. But his overiding concern was to find away to avoid war, this was clear to the American people and clear to our potential enemies. This permitted them to remain calm and move towards a solution. And it worked. And it was all done on the fly, in a matter of days.

GeeDubya had months to think about this. Months! And all during that time, we were headed towards war unless he could be convinced otherwise! This is an entirely bass-ackwards approach! It is intolerable that a man invested with so much reponsibility, as chief executive of the most powerful military machine in human history, should set on a predetermined course towards war and then consider the evidence in that light! When he “lied” about the WMD, he was not making an argument, he was justifying a decision he had already made!

In a time of crisis, Kennedy performed admirably, and millions who might well have died did not. In a contrived crisis, GeeDubya performed abysmally, and thousands who need not have died have. Short of deliberate murder there are few more damning indictments.

213

What in your subsequent argument actually supports this? Just curious.

214

Bricker:

  1. sound process;

  2. faulty decision.
    elucidator

  3. decision;

  4. rationalizing process.

215

I understand he contends this. I’m asking what evidence I’m missing in his argument that shows this is so. It appears he states his thesis, then re-states it several times. BTW, Woodward also reported that W was assured by the CIA that the existence of WMDs was a slam dunk, and W didn’t act until after this assurance. Is Woodward a good source or isn’t he?

216

Here you’ll have to rely on elucidator himself. I believe he is relying on a certain amount of assumed knowledge for clients of this board.

However in a thumbnail sketch: It is a matter of public record, that the administration set up an alternative bureau to assess WMD intelligence, for the purpose of generating a higher risk scenario than the CIA was prepared to produce.

217

Hmm, let me make sure I’m understanding you. There was an alternative bureau for assessing intelligence, dedicated to the purpose of generating a falsely urgent case for invading Iraq–and this is a matter of public record, an issue of fact, no interpretation required? Just want to make sure; if I’m misunderstanding, I apologize…

218

Correct.

Why? Well in the words of Paul Wolfowitz (paraphrased) “WMD was the reason we could all agree on.”

However these 2 fact are by no means the sole or only evidence. They are adequate to address your question.

219

That said as Shodan’s example never fails to remind us, a person acting in bad faith can ‘interpret’ battleships as bullfrogs.

220

Then you can provide a cite that supports this indisputable fact (the alternative bureau dedicated to advancing the falsely urgent conclusion)? I’d appreciate it.