Bush Republicans...what does it take to give up on Bush ?

[PatriotX]

@Rashak Mani

Wow… he had to KNOW and to ALLOW IT it for you to give up on him !?! Not only know ?

At least he was certain about it and not wishy-washy.

[Tamerlane]

@pervert

. Do you have a way to differentiate Saddam from, say, Pol Pot? Certainly Saddam’s willingness to appeal to pan arabism is one factor in such a distinction?

Well, yes - obviously they come from different places ideologically and were shaped by rather different cultures. Actually, unlike Pol Pot who had a definite ( if insane ) social theory, it is arguable whether Saddam ever really had a coherent ideology at all, which is one of the reasons the pandering to religious iconography was so easy for him. He most definitely did not spring from the intellectual wing of the Ba’ath Party - rather he was recruited as a thug and assassin. What ideology he adopted may have been merely a matter of convenience. The commonality between Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein was ruthlessness and megalomania ( to the point of overreaching, as both did - PP by provoking Vietnam, SH by trying to grab Khuzestan and later Kuwait ).

But I think the term dictator covers both of them well enough. Different sorts of dictators, but similar enough for an umbrella definition.

Do you have some good terms to use for more secular groups from the middle east? Perhpas something that could be translated as Arabist and Arabist militant?

Errm…well…secularists I suppose ;). Really pan-Arabism in particular is a moribund ideology. The Arab League pays a vague lip service to the concept, but as a real political movement it lost a lot of force after 1967 and has been dieing slowly ever since. It’s the ideology of late-middle-aged, superficially westernized Arab intellectual elites that hold little to no real power. Secularism ( which was heavily tied to the ideologies of pan-Arabism and a half-assed socialism in the MENA in the 1950’s-1970’s ) in general is looked upon as a bit of a failure in the region, because it all it seemed to produce were dictatorships ( like Iraq and Syria ) and virtual dictatorships ( like Egypt and Algeria ).

Just an aside, but have I not heard histories of Saladin that describe him primarily as a political expansionist?

Saladin? That’s quite the intellectual leap, there :p. Saladin was a medieval warlord - comparing him to modern political figures in the MENA is a bit like comparing Tony Blair to Richard I. Apples and oranges - the mindset was very different.

And yet, was not his empire also considered Islamist?

Nope. It was Islamic, which is different. The term Islamist is a modern one and refers to a modern ideology, as articulated primarily by 20th century writers like Sayyid Qutb and Mawlana Mawdudi and in part by 18th century revivalists like Muhammed Ibn Abd al-Wahab and Shah Waliullah.

Is the term Jihadist simply too modern to be applied to him?

Yes. Despite the appeal to medieval theologians like Ibn Taymiyya ( who spent much of his life hounded by local authorities and died in prison ), the movement is quite modern. Modern IslAamic fundamentalism was the backlash and counterweight to the ‘Islamic modernism’ of the 19th century that fostered a syncretism between Islam and the West, at a time of weakness in the Islamic world. Both Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic modernism attempted to address this imbalance between the West and the Islamic world ( particularly the Ottoman state ) in different, conflicting ways ( and both schools of thought continue in some respects today )

Or is there some overlap between the actions, motives, practices or methods of people like the Ba’athists and the Assads with those of the Jihadists?

Not…much. No. Certainly not motives - those are scarcely in common at all, except at very basic levels ( both Syria and Hamas might desire the destruction of Israel, but neither wants the other running things in the aftermath ). As to actions, methods, and practices, Syria is a state, the Jihadists are extra-territorial guerrillas ( or at most local milita with limited state apparatus and no formal international recognition ). Both might commit assassinations for example, but means, resources, and usually reasons are rather different.

Now, the Jihadist leadership are probably incipient dictators for the most part and the Assads are actual dictators, but otherwise there is not a lot in common.

• Tamerlane

[jshore]

@Shodan

You asserted that we now know that (for instance) Saddam had “no programs” for developing WMD, and that when Bush claimed that Saddam did, it was a lie. So I provided a link to the news story showing that Saddam had nuclear centrifuge parts and a good big batch of documentation buried in the back yard of one of his nuclear scientists. In other words, he did have a program, Bush was correct in his assertion, and we now know this to be the case. And you refer to this as an “obvious dodge”.

Same with the rest. You claim that it has been shown for a fact that Saddam did not have WMD. So I link to the places where Saddam used chemical WMD to kill some of his people - after the Gulf War - and you claim that this cannot be considered evidence that Saddam had WMD

…

Shodan,

I have to admit that I feel embarrassed for you. That you are reduced to this level of obfuscation and bullshit. It is really pathetic and it shows how the Bush Administration has corrupted not only itself but its diehard defenders. (Or may you were always this way; I don’t know.)

I suppose you can continue to live in your little world where a few parts to one centrifuge buried in the ground for several years constitutes a serious nuclear weapons program. What do you think is going to happen…These parts are going to sprout from the ground and grow into the hundreds of centrifuges needed?

And, a world where the documented fact that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons back in the 80s and early 90s (and used them at some point with pretty much of a “Bad, Saddam! [Nudge! Nudge! Wink! Wink!]” response from the U.S. at the time) becomes conflated with the question of whether he had them at the time we invaded in 2003.

And, a world where the fact that Al-Qaeda attacked in Spain a year after the Iraq war becomes conflated with the idea that there were significant connections and cooperation between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.

You may think you are performing impressive rhetorical feats here but the rest of us are just going to sit back, shake our heads sadly, and wonder what it is like to be completely whoring oneself for the President one loves so deeply.

I’d suggest for your side’s own good that you stop posting such drivel here and take it over to the Free Republic where it will probably pass for intelligent thought.

[pervert]

First, thank you again, Tamerlane. I always learn a lot from your posts.

I have one or two more questions.

@Tamerlane

But I think the term dictator covers both of them well enough. Different sorts of dictators, but similar enough for an umbrella definition.

Certainly. But it would also cover the leader of the Taliban would it not?

Nope. It was Islamic, which is different. The term Islamist is a modern one

I’m confused. I have the term Islamic and Islamist intertwined in my head. My dictionary is no help. Can you give me the essential difference between them?

@pervert

Or is there some overlap between the actions, motives, practices or methods of people like the Ba’athists and the Assads with those of the Jihadists?

Not…much. No. Certainly not motives - those are scarcely in common at all, except at very basic levels ( both Syria and Hamas might desire the destruction of Israel, but neither wants the other running things in the aftermath ).

But don’t they each want to control whatever is left in the aftermath? Even if they have completely opposite desires about how to run things in the middle east, don’t the both want to run things there? How is that not a similar goal?

AQ may want to control the area and its people in order to create an Islamic state for the greater glory of Allah (or whatever). Saddam may have wanted to control the region and its people for the greater enrichment of Saddam and his family. But is this not enough of a link to logicaly consider them in the same breath when discussing dangers and potential problems in that region? That is, from a global security stand point, isn’t there some overlap there?

[jshore]

@jshore

If you go here and type “Blix” in the Guests box, it comes up with an audiotape of the show (which was March 17, 2004). I haven’t tried listening to it.

I was just listening to this interview and highly recommend it. The question of what Blix himself believed when starts at about the 7 minute mark. Basically, Voyager’s memory was good…Blix started out the inspections believing that the Iraqis probably had some WMD, but then began to doubt it when the places that U.S. intelligence told him to go didn’t pan out. He realized that the intelligence didn’t really know what they were claiming to know. And, he also had serious doubts about the cases that Powell raised in his presentation before the Security Council. And, it was around that point that Blix told Condaleesa Rice that he would have to say something about this before the Security Council.

[jshore]

By the way, one thing that Blix states rather matter-of-factly (around the 22 minute mark of the interview) is that the previous inspections group (UNSCOM) had allowed themselves to be used by the U.S. intelligence service, e.g., to feed back information that could be useful in targetting Iraqi facilities. (One of the specific things he says is that “they allowed themselves to be piggybacked with electronic equipment that monitored Iraq for these organizations, which was not in the U.N. resolution…”)

This is interesting because when the inspectors left in '97, they left so that the U.S. and Britain could launch air raids to punish Iraq for not giving adequate compliance with the inspectors. (They were not kicked out by Saddam, as some have said, even in the media.) At any rate, at that time Iraq was justifying its non-compliance by complaining that the inspectors were engaging in spying for the U.S. A bit later, in 1999, stories broke in various U.S. papers such as the New York Times and Boston Globe, quoting anonymous U.S. and U.N. sources saying that in fact such spying had in fact occurred. However, strangely enough, as FAIR has documented, the U.S. media…even some of these very same media outlets…failed to report this in the run-up to the current Iraq war. In fact, many reported the Saddam allegations of such spying simply as allegations, failing to mention that these were allegations for which there was such good support that they were reported as being fact by several major U.S. newspapers in 1998.

Here is FAIR’s accounting of the incident:

Back in 1999, major papers ran front-page investigative stories revealing that the CIA had covertly used U.N. weapons inspectors to spy on Iraq for the U.S.'s own intelligence purposes. “United States officials said today that American spies had worked undercover on teams of United Nations arms inspectors,” the New York Times reported (1/7/99). According to the Washington Post (3/2/99), the U.S. “infiltrated agents and espionage equipment for three years into United Nations arms control teams in Iraq to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military without the knowledge of the U.N. agency.” Undercover U.S. agents “carried out an ambitious spying operation designed to penetrate Iraq’s intelligence apparatus and track the movement of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to U.S. and U.N. sources,” wrote the Boston Globe (1/6/99).

Each of the three news stories ran on the papers’ front pages. At first, U.S. officials tried to deny them, but as more details emerged, “spokesmen for the CIA, Pentagon, White House and State Department declined to repeat any categorical denials” (Washington Post, 3/2/99). By the spring of 1999, the UNSCOM spying reported by the papers was accepted as fact by other outlets, and even defended; “Experts say it is naive to believe that the United States and other governments would not have used the opportunity presented by the U.N. commission to spy on a country that provoked the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and that has continued to tangle with U.S. and British forces,” USA Today reported (3/3/99).

…

The UNSCOM team, explained the New York Times’ Barbara Crossette in an August 3 story, was replaced “after Mr. Hussein accused the old commission of being an American spy operation and refused to deal with it.” She gave no hint that Saddam’s “accusation” was reported as fact by her Times colleague, Tim Weiner, in a front-page story three years earlier.

“As recently as Sunday, Iraqi officials called the inspectors spies and accused them of deliberately prolonging their work,” the Washington Post’s Baghdad correspondent wrote recently in a story casting doubt on the Iraqi regime’s intentions of cooperating (9/8/02). Readers would have no way of knowing that the Post’s Barton Gellman exhaustively detailed the facts of the spying in a series of 1999 articles.

It is interesting to hear now from Hans Blix further collaboration that the 1999 news stories were indeed correct (although there was really very little doubt at the time about this point anyway, as noted above).

[jshore]

@jshore

It is interesting to hear now from Hans Blix further collaboration…

Of course, that should be “corroboration”. Don’t try to type and listen at the same time.

[Tamerlane]

@pervert

Certainly. But it would also cover the leader of the Taliban would it not?

Ehhh…kinda. Mullah Omar ruled a bit more by consensus. Top dog, certainly, but his was ( and is ) a very tribal society. The Taliban, though they had ( and have ) a hard-core base, depended a lot on the loyalties of fickle tribal chieftains. Just how fickle and how dependant is shown by the rapidity with which that state crumbled once placed under sufficiently overwhelming duress. One could say he was an authoritarian leader, but he ruled in consult with a council and with consideration of the desires of important tribal leaders. Granted all dictators play off internal factions - but the contrast is much more stark in Afghanistan.

I’m confused. I have the term Islamic and Islamist intertwined in my head. My dictionary is no help. Can you give me the essential difference between them?

Different people might give you different definitions, but from my standpoint:

Islamic = pertaining to Islam generally

Islamist = much more specific term referring to followers of a strain(s) of modern Islamic fundamentalist ideology that seeks to enshrine a reactionary version of Islam as the basis of political, legal, and moral authority in society/the state.

So Tunisia is an Islamic state - Islam is both the overwhelming majority religion and it is also officially enshrined as the state religion. But Tunisia is not an Islamist state - it does not adhere to the modern dogma(s) of Islamism.

But don’t they each want to control whatever is left in the aftermath? Even if they have completely opposite desires about how to run things in the middle east, don’t the both want to run things there? How is that not a similar goal?

AQ may want to control the area and its people in order to create an Islamic state for the greater glory of Allah (or whatever). Saddam may have wanted to control the region and its people for the greater enrichment of Saddam and his family. But is this not enough of a link to logicaly consider them in the same breath when discussing dangers and potential problems in that region? That is, from a global security stand point, isn’t there some overlap there?

If your argument is that secular dictators are a potential threat, just as terrorists, absolutely. Secular ( or completely non-ideological ) despots of any sort are of course potentially dangerous by their very nature.

If, however, what you are carefully edging towards is the argument that therefore Saddam Hussein or Bashir al-Assad are/were just as much a threat ( or a virtually identical threat ) as AQ, no, I’m not going to agree :). I’m also not going to argue the point very strenuously either, because I don’t wish to be sucked too deeply into debate on the topic - there is a reason I leave these topics alone these days ;). But briefly al-Qaeda and other Jihadist groups are much more threatening because they are a) much harder to punish due to their often cellular structure and dispersal and b) more dangerous because the ideology they promote is a much more insidious societal meme than the naked ambition of a dynast. See, Syria can be reasoned with ( up to a point, anyway ). The Assads are clever folks ( much more so and much more subtle than the Husseins ever were - no massive network of garish presidential palaces for them - Hafez al-Assad lived in a single modest villa in Damascus ) and while they may play dangerous brinkmanship games for whatever reasons, you can still negotiate with them ( Kissinger said that Assad was very skilled - always started with utterly unacceptable demands and carefully let himself be argued down to what he wanted in the first place, while giving the impression of being flexible ). There is a reason Syria sent an armored division to fight alongside the U.S. in Gulf War I and it wasn’t out of love for the Kuwaitis ( NOBODY loves the Kuwaitis ). They are very adept at playing all the angles to maximum advantage and realize give and take is involved. Who got their asses kicked when Israel invaded Lebanon? Syria. Who gained the most from Israel’s invasion of Lebanon? Syria.

Osama bin Laden and his ilk on the other hand are bomb-throwing fanatic. They cannot be negotiated with.

• Tamerlane

[Kimstu]

Tamerlane: Islamic = pertaining to Islam generally
Islamist = much more specific term referring to followers of a strain(s) of modern Islamic fundamentalist ideology that seeks to enshrine a reactionary version of Islam as the basis of political, legal, and moral authority in society/the state.

And just to complicate the issue a little further:
Islamicate = pertaining to a political or cultural entity that is not itself necessarily Muslim/Islamic in origin or affiliation, but is heavily influenced or dominated by its Islamic political or cultural context.

E.g., medieval Middle Eastern Jewish literature or early modern North Indian Hindu governments are sometimes referred to as “Islamicate” to indicate that although most of the chief actors may have been non-Muslims, the entity was largely shaped by the influence of the Muslim-dominated “Islamic world” in which it took place.

So:

• people who want to impose Muslim-theocratic regimes in Islamic societies (like ObL and religious conservatives in Iran) are Islamists;
• societies composed of Muslims and largely shaped by the Muslim religion and Islamic cultural heritage, like most of Saudi Arabia and Iran, are Islamic;
• while, say, the Middle East in general, which is majority-Muslim and culturally dominated by Islam, but which also comprises a lot of non-Islamic heritage and non-Muslim population, is Islamicate.

So, to use pervert’s example, Saddam Hussein was an (at least nominally) Muslim dictator of an Islamicate state governing a chiefly Islamic society, but he was not an Islamist.

Pol Pot, on the other hand, was a non-Muslim, non-Islamist dictator in a non-Islamic, non-Islamicate state.

Got it?

[pervert]

Yes, Kimstu and [bTamerlane**! Thank you both very much. That makes a great deal of sense.

---

Just FTR, IW as not going anywhere nearly so general as you took my last question, Tamerlane. I was really groping more toward what Kimstu said.

So,

@Tamerlane

If, however, what you are carefully edging towards is the argument that therefore Saddam Hussein or Bashir al-Assad are/were just as much a threat ( or a virtually identical threat ) as AQ, no, I’m not going to agree .

I would not agree with such a statement either. I would not even agree with the assertion that Saddam was as dangerous nor dangerous in the same was as Assad (as you explained more completely).
I was not even trying to suggest that secular dictators are dangerous generally. I was merely suggesting that listing Saddam’s regime (Rogue or Militant Islamicate state) along with Al Qaeda (Militant Islamist organization) as some of the dangers currently facing America and its allies in the MENA region is not unreasonable. I was not trying to equate them. I was not trying to say that they are equally dangerous nor that they should be dealt with in the same way.

Many posts back, I tried to suggest that juxtaposing Iraq and AQ in rhetoric might be justifiable on the grounds that both are “Islamic Militants”. After some excellent advice from Kimstu and Tamerlane I can now say that that statement by me is stupid. (can I call myself stupid?)

I should have said something closer to the paragraph above simply asserting that Saddam and AQ are linkable to the extent they are/were threats in the MENA region. And that therefore rhetoric about such threats which juxtapose them should not be treated with alarm or surprise. Certainly rhetoric about the region which juxtapose Saddam and AQ does not constitute proof of an administration conspiracy to hoodwink America.

I’m also not going to argue the point very strenuously either, because I don’t wish to be sucked too deeply into debate on the topic - there is a reason I leave these topics alone these days .

I understand. I should have stayed out of here as well. I did not expect the backlash from my suggestions. although I am happy that I did so. I’ve learned quite a bit.

[Desmostylus]

@pervert

I should have said something closer to the paragraph above simply asserting that Saddam and AQ are linkable to the extent they are/were threats in the MENA region. And that therefore rhetoric about such threats which juxtapose them should not be treated with alarm or surprise. Certainly rhetoric about the region which juxtapose Saddam and AQ does not constitute proof of an administration conspiracy to hoodwink America.

You continue to post disingenuous nonsense.

It’s abundantly clear that the Administration tried to link Saddam and AQ in the context of threat to the US, not threat to “the MENA region”.

It is hoodwinking, and I find your faux-naive posts repugnant.

[Sevastopol]

Demostylus, it’s even less sophisticated than that. The administration identifies Iraq as the object of revenge for the WTC. Naturally they cannot come out and say:

“We know a lot of you are bloodthirsty & vengeful orcs, so we’ll now make a meal out of this guy for you, he’s one of them A-rabs after all.”

But it’s not difficult to communicate the same thing rhetorically. And don’t they love it.

Shodan by the way: It’s not the president he loves so much, it’s his nephew and perhaps other friends and relatives serving in the war. He’s said as much. If reason and evidence tells him this service is in a dishonest and shameful cause, well then reason and evidence can just take a hike. Sad, but there you have it.

This is relevant because while we are discussing rhetoric I’m sure the same trick will be writ large in the near future. Namely, being as the US is noble, wise and just, where evidence and reason lead to an opposing conclusion, the administration, like Shodan, will invite the US public to kindly require reason and evidence to take a hike. Can’t have folks thinking bad things about the red white & blue, etc.

[Rashak_Mani]

@pervert

I should have said something closer to the paragraph above simply asserting that Saddam and AQ are linkable to the extent they are/were threats in the MENA region. And that therefore rhetoric about such threats which juxtapose them should not be treated with alarm or surprise. Certainly rhetoric about the region which juxtapose Saddam and AQ does not constitute proof of an administration conspiracy to hoodwink America.

In diplomacy they have the idea of repeating something all the time... until people accept it as a "fact" or a "truth". So even though mentioning Saddam and AQ in the same sentence might be logical as they are in the MENA and dangerous (which is your point...). Doing it repeatedly and in the context of terrorism is wrong. (Saddam wasn't a terrorist supporter)  The result was a "hoodwinked" america that the polls show beleive in the conection.

[pervert]

@Rashak Mani

[…]even though mentioning Saddam and AQ in the same sentence might be logical as they are in the MENA and dangerous (which is your point…). Doing it repeatedly and in the context of terrorism is wrong. (Saddam wasn’t a terrorist supporter).

Well, doing it in a way to suggest that Saddam was responsible for any of the Terrorism committed by Al Qaeda would be wrong certainly. But I have seen little evidence of that. Most of the evidence of the Administration linking Iraq and Al Qaeda is much more like the Dr. Cole essay Mr. Svinlesha linked to back a couple pages.

The result was a “hoodwinked” america that the polls show beleive in the conection.

Well, a mistaken America certainly. I think the problem has more to do with the media and the way they report things. If the administration mentions Iraq and Al Qaeda, it get written as

“The administration mentioned Iraq and Al Qaeda the group thought responsible for the 9-11 attacks.”

I think that evidence of a hoodwinking is lacking. I’m willing to be proven wrong, of course, but if the only evidence is that Saddam and Al Qaeda are mentioned near each other whenever the Administration talks about security threats around the world, then we don’t have a case, as it were.

Remember, the American public believes all sorts of ridiculous things. Very few of these beliefs require an appeal to some nefarious motives on the government’s part to explain.

BTW, I did not mean to ignore your response to my earlier post. I took it more as a poll sort of thing. Did you really want to continue discussing these issues with short statements? They seem a little too complex for that.

---

Desmostylus I composed a response to you in the same rude and condecending tone you have been using with me. I deleted it. I would like to say this, though

I find your faux-naive posts repugnant

That you find anything from me repugnant is, to me, a great compliment. Thank you.

[Mr.Svinlesha]

pervert:

Perversely…

…I don’t seem to be able to let this go. I will try one last time. At least, I hope it is one last time.

Let us return to the example taken from Cole’s webpage. You’ve attacked the assertions there by insisting that Cole fails to present a strict, formal argument to support his reflections. That’s correct, because in the passage Cole isn’t really interested in developing a strict, formal argument. He’s just making a casual, off-hand observation.

In addition it’s worth noting I think that Cole doesn’t mention anything regarding intent. Rather, he begins by trying to solve a puzzling problem, namely the results of a poll which reveals 57% of Americans believe something that is patently false. How could that be? Cole wonders. He goes on to state, “One can only speculate, of course.” If you had read that as carefully as you read the administration’s statements, you would realize that everything that follows is merely Cole’s speculation, obviously. He continues:

I saw how the mythical opinions are generated at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations where I testified last Tuesday. Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger testified, and began his testimony with a long quote from Usama Bin Laden about how the US was timid and had easily been chased out of Lebanon and Aden with a few bombs. It was an odd way to begin a hearing on what has gone wrong in Iraq….

Now you respond to this claim by arguing:

• There’s definately more in the blog, but go see it for yourself. It seems pretty clear to me that Mr. Schlesinger was trying to make the point that OBL’s words were meant to address the question of withdrawing from Iraq to the larger question of dealing with the War on Terrorism.*

And there it is again. You proffer an alternative interpretation, without any other backing than your own assertion that “it seems pretty clear to me…”

In fact, it is most definitely not clear. On the contrary; Schlesinger begins his testimony thusly:

I thank the Committee for its invitation to discuss the continuously unfolding situation in Iraq—and the actions required to achieve a successful transition….

Before I proceed further, I need to underscore why it is that the United States is so deeply engaged in the Middle East and what is at stake in Iraq—for I fear that there is some public uncertainty regarding these issues. For that purpose, I recommend a rereading of Usama Bin Ladin’s DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST THE AMERICANS, issued in 1998.

So to start with, no: Schlesinger is not trying to make a point about prematurely withdrawing from Iraq, and employing bin Laden’s declaration for that purpose. He is states quite clearly that he aims at answering two specific questions: 1) why are we in the Middle East? and 2) what is at stake in Iraq?

Schlesinger follows this up with a page or so of fairly inflammatory quotes from bin Laden and his various associates, concluding:

** They may be fanatics, but they are deadly serious and thoroughly persistent. We must anticipate, therefore, a conflict that will continue for many years.**

No shit. But I thought this was a hearing about what’s going on in Iraq, not the threat of al-Qaida. Or – are they one and the same? Judging from Schlesinger’s introductory statement, it would certainly appear that he believes that to be the case. Schlessinger seamlessly merges statements made by bin Laden in 1998 into a monologue about why the US invaded Iraq in 2003, as if they were literally the same topic. Why did we invade Iraq, and what is at stake there? Read this statement by bin Laden. Great, but what does bin Laden’s Declaration of War have to do with America’s decision to invade Iraq? After all, we know there was no connection between Saddam and bin Laden, don’t we?

In truth, Schlesinger could have just as relevantly answered his questions about Iraq by quoting something from Charles Manson. And I imagine that, to an Arabic ear, such a parallel would make about as much sense as the one Schlesinger tries to surreptitiously draw between Saddam and bin Laden.

Now, after this section, it is true that Schlesinger goes on to dismiss the option of withdrawing from Iraq, and in doing this he also employs a quote from bin Laden. But this passage in his text marks the introduction of a second theme, namely a rejection of the option of simply beating feet:

Usama himself has opined that, “when the people see a strong horse and a weak horse—they naturally gravitate toward the strong horse.” Consequently, this country must conclusively demonstrate that we are NOT the weak horse. Withdrawal before we have successfully stabilized Iraq is, therefore, not an option.

As far as that goes, I happen to agree with Schlesinger, which is also one of the many reasons why I was against this damn fool war to begin with.

He was in no way asserting that there was a link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam’s regime.

You just don’t seem to get it. For the fourth time or so now, neither I, nor Juan Cole, nor Jeffery Record, are arguing that Bush or other members of the administration explicitly assert a link between Al-Qaida and Saddam’s regime. We argue that by rhetorically conflating the issues, they effectively imply a connection when one does not, in fact, exist. And it’s rather astounding to me that you fail to note the way in which Senator Chafee’s questions push Schlesinger off balance. Thus, in response to Chafee’s query, he cannot provide a coherent answer as to why he began his presentation with a quote from bin Laden:

** The mention of that is to discuss why it is that the United States is engaged in the Middle East, because we were attacked, because of a declaration of war against Americans.**

(Note to perv: not, as you claim, to address the issue of a premature withdrawal from Iraq. In addition, this short response seems to indicate that we invaded Iraq because we were attacked, even though we know Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.)

The question of Iraq, which is what you point to, it may or may not have been, as some stated, central at the time we went in. It may have been secondary or peripheral at the time we went in.

Not so; we know that there are no real connections between the two. Schlesinger attempts to weasel out and continues:

I think you’ve had testimony, or a letter, at least, from George Tenet talking about the contacts between al Qaeda and Saddam going back at least a decade…

This is a pretty clear assertion of association between the two, although we are well aware that Tenet has publicly stated that no such association exists. Again, here, Schlesinger is trying to imply the existence of this imaginary connection without stating it outright. Finally, having nearly tripped himself up, he ends lamely:

But that is – we are there. We are where we are.

No shit, Sherlock. Wherever you go, there you are. On behalf of the American people, I’d like to thank you for clearing that up for us.

You continue:

• Once again, however, this is so far from an attempt to link Saddam’s regime with the attacks on 9-11, that I am surprised it is even mentioned this way by Mr. Cole.*

I think Cole must have been a bit careless at this point, because he shifted from a discussion of the supposed links between Saddam and al-Qaida to the supposed links between Saddam and 9/11. You’re correct to point out that these aren’t the same thing, although in truth, they’re very closely related.

• Absent such evidence, his impression seems to be nothing more than supposition. And heavily biased supposition at that. Have I missed something?*

Yup. See above.

• But the proposition that the administration has actually claimed, or that it seeks to blur the truth about Iraq’s involvement in 9-11 is just silly. It implies either a blatant lie on the one hand or a sinister conspiracy on the other.*

Well, now we must return to considerations of intent. Again, as I mentioned above, Cole doesn’t address the issue of intent; he simply notes that many members of the administration employ very confusing rhetoric.

The same is true with Record. In fact, he takes the administration’s rhetoric at face value, and warns that making policy decisions based on a conflation of this sort would be a deadly mistake.

Speaking for myself, I argue that all of these statements are in fact not happenstance; rather, they are crafted with extreme care and precision. The various narrative elements of Bush’s rhetoric don’t “just happen” to be juxtaposed by chance. A bevy of speechwriters go through his public statements with a fine-toothed comb, polishing every utterance, vetting every claim, establishing plausible deniability, and so forth. Since it is really quite easy to draw a demarcation in one’s rhetoric between, say, Saddam and al-Qaida, should one choose to do so, I can only conclude that the conflation is intentional. As far as that goes, of course, I guess I can only assert intent; but of course, on the other hand, you can do little more that assert innocence. From my perspective, to insist that this systematic, egregious deployment of misleading rhetoric is merely an expression of innocent carelessness requires a quite exceptional naiveté.

In your next response to me (# 264, pg. 5) you continue:

I 'm willing to believe that the Administration’s rhetoric has an effect on the public’s perception of this “link” (can I call it a myth?). Perhaps even a causal link for some of it. However, it is a long way from there to saying that the Administration engineered such a misperception.

Well, at least we’ve made one small step. You seem to admit here that the rhetoric does play some role in misleading the public. Now we only need to address the issue of intent. Your assertion is that this juxtaposition is – what? An accident?

Then, in post # 276, pg. 6:

• Ok, but that was my point. Specifically, that Cole’s opinion was just that, an opinion and not a fact. It may turn out to be true that the Administration is attempting to hoodwink America by encouraging the false impression (can we call it a myth yet?) that Iraq had something to do with 9-11. However, I was trying to point out that assertions of this nature require far more evidence than that offered by Cole.*

Well, as noted, Cole was speculating in a casual, off-hand fashion. I hope my more stringent demonstration, quoted above, meets your exacting standards.

And yes, we can call it a myth, by the way. That is, in fact, what Cole calls it.

• That may be the case. However, all of the evidence to this effect that I have seen is really nothing more than evidence of a juxtaposition. Consider the speech that Cole was refering to. He tried to make a lot out of the fact that Schlesinger quoted OBL in his introduction to remarks about Iraq. He tried to suggest that there was something vaguely improper or illogical about it. But a reading of his remarks reveals this to be untrue. There was a perfectly reasonable purpose in those quotes. This may be a “not-lie”, whatever that is, but it certainly was not a lie, nor was it even good evidence of an obfuscation.*

Well, I disagree, for the reasons given above.

• As always, I am willing to be proven wrong on this. If you are aware of an argument which does give good evidence of an intent to mislead I am very willing to look at it.*

As far as that goes I think it’s very hard to prove intent, short of Bush (or some administration insider) simply coming out and stating, flatly, “We intended to mislead the public in this manner.”

On the other hand, I think Record does a good job of making a reasonable case that this rhetoric is purposeful. Go back and reread the section I quoted from his report. Record analyzes many of the important policy pronouncements made by the administration and concludes that it risks making a serious strategic mistake, if that rhetoric reflects the administration’s real view of these issues. The reason, he argues, is precisely because they do not appear to differentiate between significantly different kinds of threat (such as “rogue states” like Iraq under Hussein, on the one hand, and terrorist networks like al-Qaida, on the other).

Another good source for arguments of this sort is the Carnegie Report, WMDs: Evidence and Implications. I imagine this paper can be located with a simple google search. Regarding this particular issue, they summarize their findings as follows:

Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon programs and ballistic missile programs, beyond the intelligence failures noted above. The most important distortions fall into three categories.

It is, by the way, the fact that the misrepresentations were precisely so systematic that leads me to conclude that they must have been purposeful.

**First, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons were routinely conflated: that is, treated as a single WMD threat. This made it technically accurate to say that Iraq had, or might still, possess weapons of mass destruction. However, such statements were seriously misleading in that they lumped together the high likelihood that Iraq possessed chemical weapons, which themselves constitute only a minor threat, with the complete lack of evidence that it possessed nuclear weapons, which would be a huge threat. Talk of “mushroom clouds” certainly led Americans to believe that the latter were in the picture.

A second source of misunderstanding was the insistence without evidence, yet treated as a given truth, that Saddam Hussein would give whatever WMD he possessed to terrorists. For the reasons discussed under question 2, this was unlikely or at best highly debatable. Yet two major consequences flow from this presumption. First, only through terrorists did Iraq pose a credible threat to the U.S. homeland. Second, the presumption collapses a deterrable threat (that posed by the state of Iraq) and an apparently nondeterrable threat (that posed by terrorists) into one. If this was a valid assumption, it meant that deterrence and containment could not be used as elements of a U.S. response to Saddam’s threat. But if the assumption is not true, these proven pillars of U.S. security policy were then, and would in future be, available as alternatives to war.

The third broad category of distortion comprises many types of misuse of the intelligence product. These include the wholesale dropping of caveats, probabilities, and expressions of uncertainty present in intelligence assessments from public statements. Part II records numerous statements by the president, vice president, and the secretaries of state and defense to the effect that “we know” this or that when the accurate formulation was “we suspect” or “we cannot exclude.” “My colleagues,” said Secretary Powell at the United Nations, “every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid evidence.” The examples noted in the report are but a few from a very long list.

Sometimes the most apparently insignificant word or two can make a world of difference. In his October 7 speech, the president refers to a finding by UN inspectors that Iraq had failed to account for a quantity of bacterial growth media. If that material had been used, the inspectors had reported, it “could have produced about three times as much” anthrax as Iraq had admitted to. The president, however, said this: “The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and is capable of killing millions” (emphases added). In two sentences, possibility first becomes likelihood, likelihood then subtly becomes fact, and a huge stockpile is created. Finally, biological agent is transformed into weapons, and not just any weapons but extremely sophisticated delivery systems—the only way such weapons could kill “millions.” Small changes like these can easily transform a threat from minor to dire.**

• Is there any similarity to a “not-lie” and a misunderstood truth?*

None whatsoever. A not-lie is a statement that is technically true, even though it in fact promulgates false information. A good example is the President’s claim in the SOTU that Iraq had attempted to purchase “yellowcake” from an African country. US intelligence sources had already debunked the claim, and Bush had been forced to remove a similar statement from a prior speech in Cincinnati (although even that required Tenet’s last-minute intercession). However, Bush prefaced the SOTU statement by saying, “We have learned from British intelligence sources that…” Thus, even though he and his speechwriters undoubtedly knew that the story was bogus – or at least highly dubious – they nevertheless could include it by relying on an external intelligence report. After all, they had heard from British intelligence sources that Iraq was seeking to purchase yellowcake – that much was true at least. And the US president can’t be held responsible for failures in the British intelligence community, now, can he? You see how it works.

Sorry for such a long-winded response. I guess the question is more important to me that I realized.

[PatriotX]

@Mr. Svinlesha

A not-lie is a statement that is technically true, even though it in fact promulgates false information. A good example is the President’s claim in the SOTU that Iraq had attempted to purchase “yellowcake” from an African country. US intelligence sources had already debunked the claim, and Bush had been forced to remove a similar statement from a prior speech in Cincinnati (although even that required Tenet’s last-minute intercession). However, Bush prefaced the SOTU statement by saying, “We have learned from British intelligence sources that…” Thus, even though he and his speechwriters undoubtedly knew that the story was bogus – or at least highly dubious – they nevertheless could include it by relying on an external intelligence report. After all, they had heard from British intelligence sources that Iraq was seeking to purchase yellowcake – that much was true at least. And the US president can’t be held responsible for failures in the British intelligence community, now, can he? You see how it works.

An example chosen from the archival crypt for convenience and relevance:

Rumsfeld, not-lying, and "technically correct"

Meet the Press 07/13/2003
MR. RUSSERT: The White House and now the CIA say it was a mistake to include that phrase in the [SotU] speech. Do you agree?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Oh, sure. Yes, indeed. George Tenet said that, the president said that. On the other hand, the use of the word “infamous” is a little strange. It turns out that it’s technically correct what the president said, that the U.K. did say that and still says that. They haven’t changed their mind, the United Kingdom intelligence people.
Now, the question isn’t that. The question is: Should those words have been in the presidential speech?
And the president and George Tenet have agreed it should not. It didn’t rise to that standard…
MR. RUSSERT: Why?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: …but they’re not necessarily inaccurate.
<snip>
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: [The Nigerien yellowcake] was not the basis for the intelligence assessment by the intelligence community with respect to the development of the nuclear programs in Iraq. That was not critical to it at all. In fact, it wasn’t even the five or six things that the intelligence community listed in their national intelligence estimate with respect to the Iraqi nuclear program.
MR. RUSSERT: …the very next day [January 29th]… you said…,** ”[Saddam’s] regime has the design for a nuclear weapon … and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”**
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: And right before it, I said, as the president said, and right after it, I said as the president said. I was simply repeating what the president had said.
MR. RUSSERT: But in retrospect, you should retract that comment as well just as the president has retracted his.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Exactly. And certainly when I said, “As the president said” in my statement and at the end I said, “As the president indicated,” I believe and that’s quite true.
<snip>
MR. RUSSERT: This is how USA Today reported it: “Almost a year before President Bush alleged in his State of the Union address that Iraq tried to buy uranium ore in Africa—seeming proof of an Iraqi effort to build a nuclear bomb—the CIA gave the White House information that raised doubts about the claim. A cable classified ‘secret’ went out from CIA headquarter to the White House Situation Room in March 2002 reporting on a visit to the African country of Niger by a retired diplomat on a special mission for the CIA. … His account said Iraq had sought closer economic ties with Niger but had not discussed a uranium sale.”
“… Further, in December 2002, a month before Bush’s State of the Union address, the CIA told the State Department to drop a reference to the uranium allegations from a white paper on alleged Iraqi weapons programs. In a later presentation on the white paper, John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, cut the Niger reference.”
So there clearly were big discussions in the administration…
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Apparently.
MR. RUSSERT: …about the accuracy. You weren’t aware of those?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: …It wasn’t until ElBaradei came out publicly…
MR. RUSSERT: In March.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: …and said that he felt that there was a forged document, that the intelligence community then said they agreed with ElBaradei, after looking at it, at which time, obviously it became clear that that fragmentary evidence may not have been right. Whether it is or not, I still don’t know. We know that the U.K. still believes it is correct, and I just simply don’t know. That’s not…
MR. RUSSERT: When Senator Pryor asked you on Wednesday [July 9th] when did you know that reports about uranium coming out of Africa were bogus, you said “Oh, within recent days.”
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I should have said within recent weeks, meaning when ElBaradei came out.
MR. RUSSERT: Back in March.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: In March, exactly, because I’m told that I was—that after ElBaradei came out with his statement publicly, I read it, and I’m told by the CIA briefer who briefs me that I, on that next day, said, “Who’s right on this?” And they said, “We’ll check.” And it was shortly thereafter that they came out with a piece of paper saying that they thought that ElBaradei was right, and…

Copyright 2003, National Broadcasting Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Note how Rumsfeld points out that he, like the PotUSA in the SotU, referenced an external source for the Nigerien yellowcake bit. This makes his comments “technically correct,” and thus not a lie, (nor a mistake).
Rumsfeld obviously has a responsiblity to keep himself up on the best and latest intel about the grave and gathering, (and maybe imminently nuclear!), threat from Iraq. Yet Rumsfeld doesn’t find out until the IAEA mentions it, despite the knowledge having been verifiably available to the Admin on at least two prior and seperate occasions. Is this because Rumsfeld’s incompetent, or is it deliberate obfuscation on his part?

@pervert

I think that evidence of a hoodwinking is lacking. I’m willing to be proven wrong, of course, but if the only evidence is that Saddam and Al Qaeda are mentioned near each other whenever the Administration talks about security threats around the world, then we don’t have a case, as it were.

There is evidence of the gov saying that aQ was meaningfully linked to Hussein, as well as indications that the intelligence community was reluctant to sign off on the idea that Hussein and UbL were getting in cahoots.

Pentagon intelligence offices on Iraq scrutinized
REUTERS
19.02.2004

[ A defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity said,]
“This was prudent policy planning based on intelligence that’s produced and shared throughout the federal government. These critics have twisted this into something it isn’t.” [ a defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity]
Pentagon officials said the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group was created…to study…terrorist organisations and state sponsors.

**Feith said this group discovered “linkages between Iraq and al Qaeda,” ** and briefed…CIA chief George Tenet.

Pentagon officials said the two offices [OSP and the CTEG] never collected intelligence and simply brought a fresh perspective to data gathered by the intelligence community.
and cribbed from here

**2-man committee put Iraq in spotlight
Senate panel probes whether they exaggerated threat**Wednesday, April 28, 2004
…two-man intelligence team…at the Pentagon, searching for…links between terrorist groups and host countries.
…Michael Maloof and David Wurmser, culled classified material, much of it uncorroborated data from the CIA.
…they…constructed a…new picture of global terrorism.
…ethnic, religious and political divides between terrorist groups were breaking down… …alliances among a wide range of Islamic terrorists, …a convergence of Sunni and Shiite extremist groups and secular Arab governments. Their conclusions, delivered to senior Bush administration officials, ***connected Iraq and al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and the hijackers of Sept. 11. ** *
Unable to reach a consensus on Iraq’s terrorist ties because of the skepticism of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)…

Al Qaeda seen as not driven by ideology
June 05, 2003
A two-person Pentagon intelligence team…found al Qaeda terrorists are not bound by ideology and will cooperate with state sponsors of terrorism.
The finding was disclosed at a briefing by Douglas J. Feith…to dispel what he said were erroneous news reports that the Pentagon sought to skew intelligence to fit policy.
The group also found links between…Hussein and the al Qaeda network, and provided the information to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet.
The Iraq-al Qaeda connection was an “incidental” finding of the group.
Mr. Feith denied a report by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that the special unit became a “conduit” to the intelligence community for defector reports from the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam opposition group.
Despite having been presented with the PCTEG’s info, to this day Tenet remains skeptical of a signifigant relationship bewteen aQ and Hussein.
Pease note there was no need for the PCTEG to act as a “conduit” to the “intelligence community” for the INC’s ICP.
Also note that the ICP had direct access to the ears of certain administration officials.
Officials: U.S. still paying millions to group that provided false Iraqi intelligence
Feb. 21, 2004
…Pentagon…$3 million [to] $4 million this year for the Information Collection Program of the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, led by Ahmed Chalabi…
INC’s Information Collection Program…“designed to collect, analyze and disseminate information” from inside Iraq, according to a letter the group sent… the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The letter…said the information went directly to “U.S. government recipients” who included William Luti, a senior official in Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld’s office, and John Hannah, a top national security aide to Cheney.
…[DIA] has concluded…that defectors turned over by the INC provided little worthwhile information, and that at least one of them…was a fabricator.
…INC-supplied information…[in]…Bush administration’s arguments for war… charges… Saddam was concealing illicit arms stockpiles and was supporting al-Qaida.
“To call all of it (INC intelligence) useless is too negative,” said the defense official…
“We are heroes in error,” [said] Chalabi…“As far as we’re concerned we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We’re ready to fall on our swords if he wants.”

Since there’s more evidence than “Saddam and Al Qaeda are mentioned near each other,” the question for the Admin is, (still and once again), “Is the error criminal or merely from incompetence?” How much of what the Admin said did they believe?

[jshore]

@kanicbird

and to top it all off he [Bush] elimitated telemarketers and spam…

Spam is on it’s way out and we have a national do not call list. You must be getting your news from a biased souce.

These were laws that he signed, yes, But, they were hardly his doing. And, as for SPAM, there is some belief that the Can-Spam Act may do more harm than good by pre-empting tougher state laws. See here.

[pervert]

@Mr. Svinlesha

@pervert

Is there any similarity to a “not-lie” and a misunderstood truth?

None whatsoever. A not-lie is a statement that is technically true, even though it in fact promulgates false information.

And a misunderstood truth is a statement which is true (abnd therefore technically true) but by reason of it being misunderstood may promulgate a false impression. I’m sorry, but I have more faith in the ability of the American public to believe strange things than I do of the Administration to engineer a conspiracy of this type. They simply don’t seem that media savvy to me.

Personally, I think they would have had to be far more media savvy than they are to disuade most of the American public that Saddam had something to do with 9-11. Americans are far too ignorant of foriegn affairs. Unfortunately given Saddam’s infamy in America and the fact that he is from the same part of the world as Ussama, there are a significant number of Americans who will not think any further.

I certainly agree that juxtaposing Iraq and Al Qaeda contribute to the misunderstanding by the American public. But blaming them for it when all of their statements are true and they are themselves willing to admit to the lack of Iraqi - 9-11 ties, is IMHO not warranted.

Sorry for such a long-winded response. I guess the question is more important to me that I realized.

No problem at all. I have enjoyed all of your responses.

Your last two posts (or any responses to this one you feel inclined to make) can be the last word on the subject for now.

I would like to ask 2 questions, though.

Many of your points require a fluid understanding of “link”. I think (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) that my conversation with Tamerlane and Rashak Mani in this thread demonstrated a sort of “link” between Iraq and Al Qaeda. You have said that all of the Administrations statements are technically true, so there must be enough of a link to allow some juxtaposition of them. Your objection seems to be that you think a more “substantial” link or “signifigant relationship” is being shoe horned, if you will, into the American public’s mind. Can you draw a line between the technicaly true links that the Administration has been making and the more substantial ones that you fear? That is, how significant would a link have to be?

Secondly, what exactly do you want the administration to do to disuade Americans of the notion that Saddam was partly responsible for 9-11? Surely you don’t want them to stop mentioning Iraq and Al Qaeda. Is there some rhetorical divide which you want them to use to seperate the two?

[Mr.Svinlesha]

Simon:

Thanks (as always) for the examples.

perv:

• And a misunderstood truth is a statement which is true (abnd therefore technically true) but by reason of it being misunderstood may promulgate a false impression.*

Yes, but a not-lie is not a statement of truth. It is a falsehood that presents itself as true because of a rhetorical trick. The “misunderstanding” derives from the fact that you believe it to be true, when in fact it is not.

When Bush stood up and said during his SOTU, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” that statement was one link in a chain of arguments he was presenting to Congress. It was a data point, if you will. The argument was, “Iraq is a threat; we must do something about it.”

Now, Bush and his staff knew that the evidence for this purchase was of a highly dubious quality. He knew that his own intelligence agency, the CIA, had long ago debunked that accusation. He knew that the Niger papers were forgeries. He knew that 3 months before he had been forced to eliminate a similar claim from a speech in Cincinnati, because the weekend prior the speech Tenet had called personally and warned him that there was no evidential basis for such a claim. (Here is a short summary.)

And yet, he said it anyway.

It was widely reported in the aftermath of this micro-scandal that the actual formulation of the statement was something a White House speech writer and a representative of the CIA wrangled over for days. Again and again, Stephen Hadley (the writer) presented a version of the sentence to the CIA rep, only to be rebuffed. Finally, grudgingly, the CIA rep approved of the version used in the SOTU, precisely because of the way the speechwriter had formulated the sentence – by starting it with the phrase “The British government has learned…”

In addition, as Simon’s link shows, the statement wasn’t even a lie – at least, not technically. Had Bush said, for example, “We believe that…” it would have been a lie, since it was well-known within the US intelligence community that the story was bogus. The CIA had even warned the British that the claim in their dossier was false! Still, technically speaking, Bush did not lie. But the claim he made in the SOTU was false, and he knew it before he ever took that first step towards the podium.

Another example of a not-lie is the administration’s use of that convenient acronym, “WMD.” As the Carnegie report notes, the initials “WMD” conceal a range of threats, from the mundane to the apocalyptic. At the risk of sounding repetative, ”such statements were seriously misleading in that they lumped together the high likelihood that Iraq possessed chemical weapons, which themselves constitute only a minor threat, with the complete lack of evidence that it possessed nuclear weapons, which would be a huge threat. Talk of “mushroom clouds” certainly led Americans to believe that the latter were in the picture.”

• They simply don’t seem that media savvy to me.*

This is your opinion, not a fact. You provide no supporting argument for it whatsoever. Am I expected to argue and argue and argue, with copious references and intricate reasoning, only to be rebuffed by your opinion? At some point, perv, you’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and get to work, if you want to be taken seriously.

• Personally, I think they would have had to be far more media savvy than they are to disuade most of the American public that Saddam had something to do with 9-11. *

Once again, nothing but an unsupported opinion on your part. But I also disagree. If Bush had made a concerted effort to separate these issues, and this conflation had not characterized the majority of the administration’s rhetoric, I doubt Americans would ever have drawn such inferences. After all, few Americans believe there exists a connection between al-Qaida and the governments of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, or, for example, North Korea.

Americans are far too ignorant of foriegn affairs.

The two points are not mutually exclusive. These rhetorical tricks exploit the American audience’s ignorance of the foreign events

• Many of your points require a fluid understanding of “link”. I think (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) that my conversation with Tamerlane and Rashak Mani in this thread demonstrated a sort of “link” between Iraq and Al Qaeda. You have said that all of the Administrations statements are technically true, so there must be enough of a link to allow some juxtaposition of them. Your objection seems to be that you think a more “substantial” link or “signifigant relationship” is being shoe horned, if you will, into the American public’s mind. Can you draw a line between the technicaly true links that the Administration has been making and the more substantial ones that you fear? That is, how significant would a link have to be?*

Why am I beginning to feel like bror Rabbit dusting it up with the Tar-Baby?

Look, when I refer to link, I’m refer to an actual link in the real world. Not an associational link, as in, “well, they’re both evil,” or “they both come from the Middle East.” I’m talking about credible evidence that, for example, they were actually working together – meetings between Iraqi officials and al-Qaida operatives, evidence of cooperation in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks, economic support, intelligence sharing, etc.

• Secondly, what exactly do you want the administration to do to disuade Americans of the notion that Saddam was partly responsible for 9-11? Surely you don’t want them to stop mentioning Iraq and Al Qaeda. Is there some rhetorical divide which you want them to use to seperate the two?*

Well, it’s late now. But they could have started by simply telling it like it is. When Bush says, “There’s no doubt that Saddam and al-Qaida are cooperating,” he’s flatly lying. (You’ve admitted as much yourself.) Rather, he could tell us the truth: “Well, to the best of our knowledge, there is no cooperation between Saddam and al-Qaida,”

Or

“We have no reliable evidence that Iraq ever attempted to purchase uranium from an African country,”

or

”Our top experts agree – the aluminum tubes are unsuitable for use in centrifuges. In all probability, they are intended for the back-engineering of rocket engines,”

or

”There exists significant uncertainty regarding Iraq’s possession of chemical stockpile, and many experts point out that such stockpiles would in any event have a short shelf life,”

or

”We have little reason to believe that Iraq and al-Qaida would cooperate, or that Iraq would give sensitive weapons or weapons technology to terrorist groups,”

and so on.

In short, the exact opposite of the what the administration actually claimed.

[Mr.Svinlesha]

Sam:

How’re ya doin’?

Really good, thanks. You?

Our discussion has gotten far too broad for me to comment on every little detail. Therefore, I’m going to simply respond at random to issues that “jump out at me,” so to speak. If I miss a point that you feel is important to your argument, please don’t hesitate to repost it.

Maybe I’m going to surprise you here, but I agree with everything you said. If Tenet actually said that to Bush (and there were, apparently, lots of witnesses and Woodward swears by it), then Tenet’s head should roll. That he’s still on the team is an indictment of Tenet AND Bush.

Tenet’s head…or Bush’s?

Whatever Tenet said at that meeting, it is true that the NIE was chock full of caveats and dissenting opinions. In his public statements, Bush chose to present that information in categorical terms. His decision to drop caveats and ignore internal controversies over the intelligence data he received can’t be blamed on Tenet, as far as I can tell. And by framing the issue in this way, you’re gratuitously ignoring the pivotal role played by the OSP:

**While C.I.A. director George J. Tenet struggles in Washington to prove that his agency did not exaggerate the danger Iraq posed to the United States, American forces continue to come under attack on the ground throughout Iraq. Misunderstanding is evident in both situations. Not comprehending similar courses of events in Vietnam cost Americans thousands of lives and billions of dollars. So it is worth attempting to get as precise an interpretation of the issues as is now possible.

Take intelligence first: In his speech at Georgetown University on February 5, Mr. Tenet was candid on what he thought of as the central issue: that the analysis offered by his agency was “generally on target” and its advice to the President was hedged with warnings that all intelligence can be only an “estimate.”…

In that talk, Mr. Tenet carefully avoided the central problem. The problem is not that the CIA was wrong but that it was replaced.

What replaced the CIA was a new office created in the Pentagon to provide a more “supportive” underpinning for the already agreed direction of policy. This “Office of Special Plans” was created under the aegis of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary Douglas Feith. Reporting to Stephen Cambone, as under-secretary of defense for intelligence and the man who took the lead in the campaign to justify the attack on Iraq, was one of the most important but least known of the small band of “Neoconservatives,” Abram Shulsky.

Mr. Shulsky’s organization aimed essentially to supplant the entire American intelligence system. Although never admitted, its task, effectively, was to prove the charge, aggressively pushed by Vice President Cheney, that Saddam Hussein, in conjunction with his ally Usama bin Ladin, was poised to attack the United States with an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. It is that alternative intelligence analysis to which those who made the decisions listened. And it was that alternative which Tenet carefully avoided discussing.

– William Polk, senior director of the W.P. Carey Foundation**

(And yes, I also got that passage off Juan Cole’s website.)

But not firing Tenet is not exactly a fatal error, because it’s somewhat understandable from a political perspective. If Bush fired Tenet now, you know that Kerry would be running around saying Bush is looking for scapegoats. It would look like the administration is panicking.

So you now advocate prioritizing election politics over matters of national security?

Anyway, the argument is lame; Bush has had more than a year to act on the problem of US intelligence failures. As far as I can tell, other than covering his own ass and the asses of his friends and associates, he’s done absolutely nothing about it.

I find it frustrating that you still insist that the pre-war intelligence was rock solid…

And where did I say that?

My mistake. I thought you were quoting Tenet with approval, as if you agreed with his assessment.

*I said that Bush made reasonable decisions given the intelligence he was presented. That the intelligence was wrong is not really in question now, is it? The important question is how everyone got it wrong….

It was reasonable to believe that Iraq had WMD. That they apparently didn’t is confusing, and a lot of people are still scratching their heads over that.*

Oh, good Lord. Here we go again.

You and I have debated to a standstill over the question of whether or not it was “reasonable” to assume that the infamous “aluminum tubes” were suitable for use as enrichment centrifuges. Unless your definition of “reasonable” diverges significantly from the average, I submit that by the end of that debate it was obvious to all but the rabid few that this assumption was not reasonable. You yourself were reduced to falling back on nothing other than your faith in the intelligence community, if you remember.

It as if that discussion never happened now, apparently. At the very least, when you make statements like this, can you not caveat them? Can you not just write something like, “Well, as I see it, it was reasonable to assume that….” Because whether you like it or not, your statement is still a source of contention, and I simply refuse to let you background it like that. You can’t just pretend we all agree with you that it was reasonable, and we’re all scratching our heads about it now. I for one, am not scratching my head, because I tried to tell you that the evidence was not convincing from the very beginning.

• But certainly, no WMD were found on the scale that the U.S. presented, so the intelligence was wrong even some amounts of WMD are found.*

Either the intelligence was wrong, or we were lied to. As you know, I strongly suspect the latter myself.

This requires an investigation. I would support a bi-partisan investigation into the intelligence failures that preceded the war. But that investigation has to take place after the election (and not because I’m protecting Bush, but because it would turn into a useless mud-slinging contest if it were held now).

I agree with you here, at least in part. But the commission must have wide-ranging powers to investigate allegations of intelligence manipulation as well, in my opinion, if it is to be considered legitimate. If, as you believe, there was no manipulation, then you’ve no reason to fear an inquiry into these allegations, and eventually it would force nitwits like me to shut our yap.

The problem of timing is not that simple, however. The information an investigatory commission uncovers might prove pivotal in deciding to vote for or against the current administration. That consideration must be balanced against the very real chance that it would just become a partisan mudfight.

First of all, you’ve been doing an admirable job of keeping this civil, which is why I’m taking the time to give you serious responses. Don’t blow it with cheap shots like saying I’ve ‘stolen talking points from the monkey fist collective’.

Thanks. Hope to keep it that way.

I simply meant that you have a tendency to paint all of debating opponents with one brush (of extremism). I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lump me in with some of my more fanatical “bongo-mashing” brethren, if you don’t mind.

Now I’d like to take a moment to comment on this telling progression:

From what I can tell, Juan Cole is full of it. I have not seen anyone else claim that Sadr’s support was greater than a small minority.

followed by, a bit later:

Why do you consider Juan Cole an expert? His 30% ‘low’ number is still a gross exaggeration. Methinks this is just partisan spin.

followed by, still later:

• Before we go any further, I’d like to point out that you have been unquestioning in your acceptance of data that portrays the war and occupation in a bad light, including outageous figures like 50% Shiite support for al-Sadr, based on nothing more than the word of a partisan like Juan Cole.*

It’s interesting to see how Juan Cole, whom you apparently know nothing about, has evolved from total stranger to a partisan hack right in front of our very eyes.

Actually, to answer your question: Juan Cole is a professor of history at the University of Michigan, specializing in the history of the Middle East. He’s the author of countless newspaper and journal articles, as well as Sacred Space And Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi’ite Islam. He also sponsors his own weblog, Informed Comment, which, in my opinion, is required reading on day-to-day events in Iraq, if only because it is one of the few net sources which contains regular updates on coalition casualties.

Here is an NPR interview of Cole in which he relays his view of the Sadrist uprising.

Anyway, regarding al-Sadr: let’s be clear that Cole isn’t talking about those Iraqis who identify themselves as followers of al-Sadr. I was unclear on that point. Rather, he’s referring to how many Shiites might have some sympathy for al-Sadr’s views, and in particular his vision of an Iraqi theocracy. (I don’t think even al-Sadr himself would consider being the leader of such a theocracy, so your poll results aren’t surprising in that regard.)

Concerning these numbers, Cole writes on April 4th:

The always tense relationship between the Sadrist movement among Iraqi Shiites and the US and its Coalition partners has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Perhaps a third of Iraqi Shiites are sympathetic to the radical, Khomeini-like ideology of Sadrism, and some analysts with long experience in Iraq put it at 50%. Earlier Muqtada Al-Sadr, the movement leader, had called on his forces to avoid violence against Coalition forces. As of Saturday and Sunday, he appeared to have feared that the Coalition meant permanently to exclude his group from power, and had decided to launch an uprising.

This is where I got the figure. Cole doesn’t provide any support information, so I don’t know how he arrived at it.

al-Sadr is widely seen as being the leader most supported by Iran, and his uprising appears to have been funded in part from Iran.

This is actually a matter of some dispute, according to Cole (and others). From all accounts Iran is playing a important covert role in just about everything that’s going on in Iraq. How deeply they’re involved in this particular uprising, on the other hand, is anybody’s guess. Most specialists, I believe, reject the claim that Iran has been dictating events from behind the scene. However: I’m wandering in uncharted territory myself, here, since I know literally nothing about these matters aside from what I read, so I certainly can’t say with confidence that this is the case. However, I think it’s a mistake to underestimate the influence of Iran in the Iraqi popular mind. Even if the majority of Iraqis reject a Khomeni-style theocracy, it seems pretty clear that a rather large group favors it.

Perhaps Tamerlane has an opinion on this question?

I have to close for now. More later.