Apparently you aren’t aware that Kerry in fact DOES support an increase in troops in Iraq. It’s in fact a central part of his platform. The position you describe is in fact Kerry’s exact position. What’s interesting is that a right-winger in another thread criticized Kerry for this, claiming it’s not possible.
Also, a little bit on the hijack of your debating style: I have to agree with Mr. Svinlesha. I have found myself repeatedly “swatting at flies” in trying to understand your position in this debate. I feel like a lot of times you are, either deliberately or not, dangling carrots for us to chase after, then pulling them away, in effect, by saying “That wasn’t my point.”
Did Saddam have true devotion? Not that I could see. I think Bush is far more religious than Saddam ever was.
Again, did Saddam ever do this? The attack on Kuwait was not driven by religion, nor was the war with Iran. I’m sure they all sang God on My Side at some point, but Kuwait was about oil, expansion to a place with some history of being an Iraqi province, and what was perceived as a green light from a US diplomat.
Terrorist organizations that are somewhat Islamist sure. But I don’t think they get much opportunity to operate within Syria.
Well, Islamic militants may or may not be hypocrites - Christians too. Ignoring this, I think you are saying that an activist is a peaceful militant. I can buy that. I can also buy that an Islamic militant is militant specifically to spread Islam, which may or may not be done to gain control. It might be done out of sincere religious conviction, which doesn’t excuse it. Saddam, however, exerted control long before there was an Islamic revival. Calling him a militant instead of a run-of-the-mill despot seems odd. Calling him an Islamic militant seems to be not supported by evidence. Bush is a Christian using violence to extend his control, but I wouldn’t call him a Christian militant, since there is no evidence that the war on Iraq was religiously motivated.
Well, it appears that there is scant distinction in some cases. However, some Islamic charities are actually helping. And how are those dedictated to spreading Islam different from Christian missionary work, which even I wouldn’t call militant.
Yes, they lied that they had proof, but that is not the greatest of their sins. I am totally fed up with the position that since everyone thought there were WMDs in 2002, the invasion was justified. Before the invasion, thanks to the maligned inspections, it was becoming very evident that the suspicion that Iraq had WMDs was not justified. Hans Blix said, on his Fresh Air interview, that he stopped thinking Iraq had them when the inspections of the sites pointed to by US intelligence revealed no WMDs. So, even if Bush & co. were honestly convinced that there were WMDs in 2002, they should have begun to doubt this conviction before the war began. But they didn’t. They had made up their minds to invade well before, and no inconvenient facts were going to stop them. This maintaining a position despite all evidence to the contrary is repeated again and again in this Administration. That’s what makes them dangerous. Lots of administrations lie, but only the Bushies are so unwilling to change course, no matter what.
If I may, this is because you refuse to understand.
No it is not. The position I described is Kerry’s position if he wants to continue the current administration’s policy.
From his website:
Except that they have not requested more troops now. I am aware that there is contention on how many should have gone in. I am aware that some have said that this is proof that the pentagon really wants more troops. But do you have any evidence that the commanders currently in charge of the operation are asking for more troops and not getting them?
Furthermore, (and more to the point about not understanding), I mad the mistake of using the word “significant” without bolding it. If Rumslfed says that “They will decide what they need, and they will get what they need,” Mr. Rumsfeld said. “At the present time, they’ve announced no change in their plans. But they could make such a request at any time.” and Kerry says that we should give the commanders what they want, where is the “significant” difference?
What I was trying to say was that if Kerry really thinks that Iraq is a huge debacle, as his rhetoric suggests, then his solution should read differently from the proposals of the current administration. You see, no calls for large amounts of detail, no calls for information he does not have a simple point you have consistently (some might say intentionally) refused to understand.
On another point, blowero I missed your earlier responses due to the page change. FTR, I do not think that the Iraq war has been on balance a mistake. I did not answer the question when you first posed it because it was not rellevant to the discussion about the way the OP phrased his question. You see, no dodging, just an attempt to discuss a particular point which you kept not understanding.
I’m sure that the misunderstandings were my fault. I hope I have cleared a couple of them up. If not, Eh.
Voyager We may be talking past each other. I’m not really sure I have a good definition for Islamic militant. I do like your idea that maybe “an activist is a peaceful militant”.
Let me try again.
If an organization uses or supports Islamic practices, policies or “goals” (whatever Islamic goals are), then that organization can be said in some vague way to be Islamic. If that organization uses violence to achieve its goals then it is militant.
Such a definition surely allows for shades of grey. Certainly Saddam is more an Islamic militant than Jimmy Carter was. Whether he is enough of one to have the label applied I’m willing to concede could be argued.
There is a lot of rhetoric in the second quote I included in which Saddam trumpeted his victory over Iran and how they are not true followers of Muhammad. He was certainly trying to make the point that, as you said, “God was on his side”.
Ok. But how do you distinguish between the actual motivations of such actions and the motivations of AQ in 9-11.
I’m not sure I understand this at all. If he suports Islamic terrorists he is still not a Islamic militant unless he allows them to opperate in his own country?
I’m not sure I see the distinction. I understand how a despot could or could not be Islamic, but if he is Islamic, how does that make him not a run of the mill despot?
Well, again, that depends on the definition of Islamic Militant. Surely he uses Islamic rhetoric. Surely he portrays himself as a follower of Islam.
Perhaps he is more an Arab Militant?
But he does not pepper his speeches or policies with as much Christian rhetoric as Saddam did Islamic rhetoric.
BTW in regards to my debating style, I need to point out that the last 5 paragraphs are really questions. I am not trying to make a point ot trick anyone with them. When you questioned whether or not Saddam was an Islamic Militant, I realized that I do not have an acceptable definition. The questions below the line are really intended to probe for such a thing rather than to make any point.
You give the centrifuge meme too much credibility here. The centrifuge bearings uncovered bear the same relationship to a centrifuge as does a crankshaft bearing to an automobile.
Specifically:
•It takes more than a shaft bearing to craft a functional automobile.
•No one in their right mind would actually use a crankshaft bearing that had been buried under the rose bushes for a decade.
Christ this thread is going faster than I can follow… come on Bushies.
Hans Blix and half the world didn’t beleive there were significant WMDs… much less 45 min deployable or nuclear.
Powell gave Zero proof.
Inspectors didn’t find anything where Bush said there were WMD.
Rummy and Bush were in such a great hurry why ? Why not let inspectors try to find something ?
Things don’t add up with Iraq… even if Saddam did deserve to be toppled and Iraq “liberated”. Why didn’t Bush just say that they needed to take the troops out of Saudi and needed to defuse Saddam ? Why humiliate the UN and former allies ? Why use the coalition of the “willing” instead of a real one ? The US doesn’t need to fumble around to demonstrate military power.
Have you guys ever read about Chalabi, the INC and the money they are getting from US intelligence ? These guys have been feeding false info… including those Mobile WMD chemical trucks… to Rummy and Bush for a long time.
Bush is doing what is good for Saudis, Oil companies, Chalabis and Afghani warlords… not US interests.
Okay, that is much clearer, and I can buy this as a reasonable definition.
Well, we won’t know the direct motivation of 9/11 until we catch bin Laden, but revenge seems some of it. However, AQ are clearly Islamic militants by your definition, since setting up Islamic states is part of their charter. Saddam didn’t when he had the chance, and seemed to be unfriendly to those who wanted to, not the least being the Iranians. Yes, when cornered he tried to make himself seem like an Islamist (and more for external consumption than internal - didn’t he talk of a jihad?) but no one bought it, and I don’t hear any of the true Islamists in Iraq wanting him back. So, he’s a militant, in a sense, who is Islamic, but not an Islamic militant.
The problem seems to be the distinction betweem a militant who is a follower of Islam and an Islamic militant. The distinction is the desire to set up a state under Islamic law, which Iraq was never an example of. For the Assad case, say we had a beef with Canada and supported Quebec separatists. I suspect any such organization would get squashed fast if they wandered down to Louisiana and stirred up Cajun separatists. But actually, is Hamas really an Islamist organization? I don’t think a Palestinian state would operate under Islamic law, I’ve never heard any Palestinian leader call for this, but I could be wrong.
And Saddam was a run of the mill despot, who happened to be Isamic.
Did Saddam in the past? In any case, even Bush’s conviction that God is telling him what to do doesn’t make him a Christian militant, even though his statement is probably more heartfelt than Saddam’s.
I think we were converging to a good definition, and I didn’t see the questions as a trick. The danger is this. If we all agree that bin Laden is an Islamic militant, and if you produce a specialized definition that makes Saddam one, then one would try to equate bin Laden with Saddam, though the rest of us don’t agree that Saddam falls into the stronger definition we think bin Laden falls into. If it is duck season, and I convince you of a special definition of duck that includes pheasants, that doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly allowed to shoot pheasants!
I’m not sure he claimed that what he presented was “proof”. The issue was wether of not Iraq posed a danger, not whether or not Iraq had, beyond the shadow of a doubt, certain classes of missles.
Yep, the intelligence was wrong.
For how long? Another couple decades perhaps?
I have no idea what you are talking about interms of moving troops out of Saudi. Was that one of Bush’s goals?
Well, Bush did, in fact, ask them to join him. They chose not to. I’m not sure how this qualifies as humiliation.
I have no idea what this means. You mean willing partners are not real partners? Would coerced partners be more real?
I’m not sure what the point of this is either. Are you simply saying that Iraq was a fumble, or are you saying that America is trying to demonstrate its military power. Perhaps this another of Bush’s goals I am not aware of.
How’s that. Satisfied?
You know, I’m sitting here wondering why on God’s green earth you would waste your time, and mine, with that last reply. It must have taken you at least 30 minutes to fix all of those pretty little hyperlinks in between the quotes, maybe longer. You must also have known that your response was an open and obvious dodge, and would be immediately perceived as such by literally everyone involved in this debate, regardless of their position on the issues.
You know quite well that prior to the war, Bush asserted every single one of those claims as fact, current fact, and that after the invasion we failed to unearth even the slightest evidence for any of them. We failed to find the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons he claimed were there. We failed to find the nuclear weapons facilities or programs. We failed to find evidence of an alliance between Hussein’s regime and al-Qaida. Etc. I’m not going to waste anymore time listing them.
You must have noticed in my last response that I invited you to open, straightforward debate on these issues. You responded with a transparent dodge. How can you sit there with a straight face and accuse the anti-war left of being disingenuous? Of “denying reality”?
I also asked you a straightforward question: “Doesn’t this make you scratch your wooly (or not-so-wooly) pate and wonder, just a little bit – could I have been lied to?” I ask it again. Does not the fact that absolutely none of the administration’s pre-war claims about Iraq’s weapons have proven true cause even a sliver of doubt, or curiosity, to arise somewhere back in the dark recesses of your brainstem? Is your honest response to that question a reiteration of irrelevant links? In short, what could possibly get you to doubt Bush’s sincerity? Anything at all?
Not at all. I’m referring to known, irrefutable facts, and you are willfully trying to ignore them and cloud the discussion in an obviously purposeful and misleading manner. pervert:
Well, for what it’s worth, I understand your argument much more clearly now.
Okay, now here is the point: obviously, if the administration were to explicitly claim the existence of a link between, let us say, Saddam and 9/11, it would be found out as a lie. At least as far as we know, there is no serious evidence of the existence of such a link.
Yet, on a regular basis, administration spokesmen consistently refer to al-Qaida, 9/11, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and “WMDs” in the same breath, paragraph, or sentence. It is a kind of talking point. In my last post, I quoted Record’s presentation of a few examples of this tendency; in another thread, recently, I spent some time analyzing the narrative structure of Bush’s rhetoric in detail, taking as an example a response he gave to reporter who posed a question to him during his press conference in Poland.
There is a significant difference between making an explicit claim, on the one hand, and implying a connection by means of rhetorical association, on the other. You are correct; anyone who argues that the administration has officially, explicitly claimed the existence of a connection between Hussein and 9/11 would be either lying or mistaken. That’s not my claim. I argue that the administration is willfully conflating the two by insinuation. It is playing a rhetorical trick. It’s so tricky, in fact, that Simon X invented the term “not-lie” to try to capture its essence. The statements aren’t lies, exactly, if you read them carefully; they just aren’t very clear, careful statements of the whole truth. They are not-lies.
So yes, you are completely correct; a careful reading of statements made by the administration would reveal that it has never made such a claim; but the constant juxtaposition of these elements does seem to imply a vague, hidden connection of sorts, one that is often difficult to articulate when subjected to critical scrutiny.
I would like to suggest that Marshall’s thought experiment, which I cited above, would help to clarify this point. We know that there is no real connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11; we also know that despite this, many Americans mistakenly believe the opposite. Now, this matter could be cleared up very easily; Bush could simply stand up at his next public appearance and state, flatly, that no such connection exists, in clear, plain language. Tenet has said as much, publicly. I challenge you to produce 2 more public statements in which Bush, or other significant administration officials, unambiguously reject this connection. Because, believe me, I can fill several pages with quotes in which they are obviously conflated in the administration’s rhetoric.
perv, I have to close for now; but this is to me a very interesting debate, and I hope to get back to with a more extensive answer to your objections as soon as I can.
All I can say is that at least two of us have noticed the same thing about you. So perhaps it is not our refusal to understand, but rather your inability to present a consistent position.
I applaud the artifice of your argument. For you to take Kerry’s unambigous statement that “we are going to need more forces on a temporary basis”, and claim it means that he would keep the same number of troops as Bush currently has is the ultimate in sophistry. And it only took you 3 paragraphs to get there. Your surreptitiousness is so is so complete that you almost succeed in masking the fact that your argument is nonsense.
His solution DOES read differently. And as I explained, it is perfectly consistent to criticize Bush’s performance even if it might not be possible to UNDO EVERYTHING that Bush has done. You seem to insist that one is not allowed to criticize Bush unless one can somehow magically wipe the slate clean of everything Bush has done. I will repeat my point: Bush made a mess, and whoever his successor is has to clean up the mess. They will have to play the cards that BUSH has dealt. But you want to criticize Kerry in advance for not going back in time and having his OWN deck of cards. It’s too late for that; the damage is done.
Why do you keep claiming that YOUR inability to explain your position is due to MY misunderstanding? You quite obviously did not want to reveal the information because you wanted to straddle both sides of the fence, in order to present disingenous arguments that you could later snatch away from us when we refuted them. Don’t try to pass off your bait & switch tactics on US.
Not a Bushwhacker, not hardly, but the answers to these are easy:
He believed there were some WMDs, at least, at the time they started the inspections, but not by the time the war started.
Because everything he said was wrong. I wondered at the time how it was that if we knew exactly where the WMDs were, we didn’t tell the UN inspectors so that they could produce the proof. Now we know.
Precisely because it was becoming clearer and clearer that there was nothing to find. However, the WMDs were always a cover story, they were going to invade no matter what, and the summer was coming on. That’s probably the real reason.
Don’t quite see how the troops in Saudi Arabia had anything to do with it. The honest thing to do would have been to say that they wanted to invade to remove a tyrant. But popular opinion in the US was against that, and the only way Bush could get support for the war was to say that there was an immediate threat, to conflate Saddam with AQ, and to say that unless we did something right now there could be another 9/11.
AQ complained about infidels (US troops) in Saudi Arabia. So by invading Iraq you would take out those troops in Saudi Arabia to Iraq. Taking away one of the main complaints of extremists.
I actually think that is a good thing to do… take 'em out of Saudi Arabia… unless your sending them elsewhere in the same region without a UN stamp of approval.
And it goes beyond simply guaging popular opinion in the US. You really can’t just up and invade a country because it’s run by a meanie. Unilateral invasions are against international law. The only kind of unilateral invasion that’s permitted is one that’s in response to a real threat, in other words, self-defense. I realize we will now get the standard thread hijack from all the right-wingers who will make the specious claim that it’s not illegal if you don’t get prosecuted, but that’s really neither here nor there. The fact is that the proper way to deal with a tyrant is to work with the international community, not just start firing missiles unilaterally. Doing it any other way is going to have repercussions. The repercussions may not take the form of a war-crimes court, but they will happen.
I can agree that if we were to proscute the war on terror in strictly law enforcement terms, then we probably would not have invaded Iraq. I can also see the argument that even without keeping the war on terror a strictly law enforcement program, invading Iraq had little to do with the war on terror.
However, I’m afraid the Democrats are trying to take it too far the other way. Can we really say that the situation in and around Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with international terror? Perhaps not in the sense that Saddam was himself involved in or sponsering specific acts of terror (the law enforcement view). But surely in the sense that he represented an intransigent enemy to the United States, willing to use force, with the motivation and connections necessary to support a terrorist attack on the United States.
Now, before you get too excited, I am not claiming that Saddam was a clear and present danger. But before the war, the case that he might be a threat was not so ridiculous as it is being made out to be now.
Let me put the situation another way. Was Saddam an Islamic Militant who was being intransigent about his WMD capabilities or programs? Or was he a Militant Despot who happened to be Islamic who was being intransigent about his WMD capabilities or programs? Is there really a third choice? Is there really a material difference?
Would you mind showing me a cite for this? I found his report dated January 2003 in which he laid out the possible WMD programs Saddam might be hiding. But I did not find anything from the next couple months where he decided that there were none. Thanks in advance.
Well, then perhaps you should read the rest of Kerry’s position. He said “*To succeed, we are going to need more forces on a temporary basis. Our commanders on the ground have requested it. We should provide it. *” Is it really sophistry to point out that providing what our commanders want is exactly what Bush is promising? Can you explain to me how this position and the administration’s are significantly different?
Of course.
Can you point out where I did this? I don’t recall using language which even suggested this. As I recall, I suggested two courses of action that Kerry could take (rhetorically) that would make me believe his current rhetoric was sincere concerning the war. They are polar opposites.
No, I, don’t. Never have never will. Haven’t called for cards, magical powers, or time machines.
While searching around, I found this from CBS News. It is not the same argument I was making, but it is similar. He makes the point that a major policy speech on Iraq is needed from Kerry to highlight the differences between his position and Bush’s.
“*John Kerry has a dilemma. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee must find a way to offer an alternative to the current U.S. policy in Iraq without appearing opportunistic or unpatriotic. He must walk a fine line. He must not appear to be trying to capitalize politically while Americans die daily. *”
Let me try this another way. I had serious reservations at the time of the invasion. I had similar reservations about Afghanistan. My problem centered on what (to me) is an important aspect of international law. Namely that nations should not engage in sneak attacks. Specifically, that they should declare war before begining hostile actions against one another. I believe the principle is enshrined in the UN (although I agree that charter goes farther) and the United States Constitution. I think we failed to live up to this idea in both theaters.
However, I do not think that the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq was on balance a mistake, crime, nor that either one was so thououghly bungled that America needs drastic action or significant help to succeed.
Having said that, perhaps I can come at the argument in another direction. I like some of the things that Kerry is saying about Iraq. In his speeches (which are not all quoted in thier entirety on his web site, odd) he makes some good points. I especially like the one about increasing the number of Arab speaking personel on the ground. Improving our relations with other nations sounds good on its face as well.
After perusing his site for a while, I find I have to withdraw a little of what I said earlier. It seems that Senetor Kerry’s penchant for hyperbole has been somewhat overblown. I’ve fallen for the same trap I accused you of, Mr. Svinlesha. I’ve drawn conclusions from sound bites and pundit opinions. I will try to do better. When he comes out with a more detailed policy statement on Iraq, perhaps I will participate in the inevitable thread about it. I should have directed my remarks about hyperbolic rhetoric towards other elements in the Democratic party.
Actually, I think one of the unfortunate things about the whole Iraq debacle is that it has grabbed the headlines to the point that the argument about Bush’s being a liar and deceiver is almost always discussed exclusively in terms of Iraq. The fact is that the Bush Administration has lied and deceived many times before the start of the Iraq war and has done so many times after.
In fact, some of us here on the SDMB were arguing shortly before the Iraq war that Bush could not be trusted and were challenged with the question “So, do you believe the word of a homicidal tyrant over the word of our President?” My personal response was that unfortunately the facts show that neither one has demonstrated the credibility to earn even a little of my trust and thus the only thing I can believe is the evidence, e.g., as being gained from inspections. My personal guess at the time is that the truth might lie roughly halfway in between Saddam’s claims of not having any WMDs or WMD programs and Bush’s claim that he had significant programs and stockpiles and that they constituted a real threat to the U.S. Alas, all that history has shown is that I would have been guessing closer to the truth if I had simply believed the homicidal tyrant rather than splitting the difference between him and the President! Personally, I find this rather sad and to what extent it is because of outright lies and deception by the President and to what extent it is because of lots of self-deception and cherry-picking of evidence is an interesting question but ultimately not that vital in deciding whether I want this man to be President of my country.
For some accounting of all the lies of the Bush Administration, you can check out these two cites:
I’ll admit that the second one can stretch things a bit in what they consider to be lies sometimes. But, you gotta cut them a little slack given that they come up with a new lie/deception 5 days a week (plus special reports). And, it is not clear that the Administration is capable of coming up with new and original lies and deceptions on quite that fast a time scale. Although in line with Bush’s corporate CEO philosophy, they do seem to have done a remarkable job in reducing their “cycle time.”
