I’m not trying to apply any sort of odd meaning to that word at all. Reconstituted means rebuilt, resurected, or perhaps restarted. Isn’t that what it means to you? As I said before, this quote is from a transcript of an interview. I believe that the sentence itself is a mistatement. I agree with you that as written it makes no sense. That’s why I suspected something was missing when I first read it.
Well, ok, but you are reading the statement wrong. Cheney is not saying that the programs can be proved beyond all doubt. He in fact says that the picture we had at the time is mostly incomplete. He is saying that the administration believes that the portions of the picture we had were enough to justify a belief that Saddam has reconstituted his nuclear weapons program. This is the portion which is not a lie as you asked. The administration did in fact believe this. Did you think he was including you in the “us”?
Here’s another great quote from Cheney: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” – Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02
He is exactly saying that the programs can be proved beyond all doubt. The first sentance admits that not all of the facts are in his possession - “We don’t know how much. We know we have a part of the picture”. The next sentance goes on to say that, included in the facts that are in his possession is that “And that part of the picture tells us that he is, in fact , actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.”
The claim is not that the evidence is murky, that we don’t really know but, given Saddam’s past history, we think he might be trying to acquire nukes. The claim is that there is factual evidence that these activities are occuring. Now, either that was true, and this evidence existed and can be presented, or the statement was a lie.
So…I got this bottle of lemon juice. Well, its not really lemon juice, its reconstituted lemon juice, which used to be lemon juice, but then was made into something else, and then made back into this stuff which isn’t really lemon juice, but just something kinda like lemon juice.
Boy, Chenglish is a tougher language than I thought!
Does the label say whether the lemons were originally from “the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat”, or have you been bamboozled into buying 'American process lemon juice substance"? The later isn’t even really reconstituted lemon juice, but rather a mixture of citric and ascorbic acids with some sugar, artificial coloring, and a few brominated fatty acids to give it a lemon juice like cloudyness. The problem’s not with Chenglish; you can thank the FDA for the deceptive labeling practices.
Well, I just noticed this post and while they may be almost interchangable in common usage, the words preventative and pre-emptive have very set meanings in just war discussion and international law. Presumably the vice-president of the United States is familiar with this and able to use the correct term, as preventative wars are I believe illegal under the UN charter, not falling under the catagory of defensive. Pre-emptive has the mentioned first shot at a gun fight aspect, while preventative is going down to the training range and starting a gun fight with everybody who looks like they could get good enough to threaten you.
Preventative strikes and wars are viewed as somewhat illegitimate, pre-emptive strikes and wars are viewed as excellent strategic timing. Israel is an expert at the pre-emptive strike, and generally has gotten away with it because they had solid signs that they were about to be attacked. Preventative wars would justify using military might to assure that no one compared to your relative power position, and could therefore justify nearly any war, one of the main reasons why preventative wars are not considered just wars.
I don’t know where you are getting these quotes, but could you please find the original speech next time? It would save me some time. This one is from here. He said a lot of things. Many of the about Iraq. He summarized the administrations case against Iraq pretty well. It is an interesting read.
No, he is not. The phrase “in fact” is an emphasis in that sentence. Notice the “tells us” phrase? He is saying that the administration believes Saddam is attempting to aquire nuclear weapons. It would be a lie if they did not, in fact, believe such a thing. If they do believe it, however, it is not a lie.
TheSquirrelfish
Well, no, it is simply the continuing changing of common usage of the english language. Again, allow me to sympathize with your quest. Allow me to agree with your interpretations of the words and say that I understand the legal and semantic distinction. However, I must also confess to having used one when the other was more correct. I agree that the administration tried very hard to describe the war in Iraq as preemptive vs preventative. I agree that they did so for reasons of treaty compliance. However, I also think they did so because of a real threat. Perhaps the threat does not rise to the level necessary for preemption, but neither did the attacks of 9-11 until they were under way.
Well, I don’t think so. Look again at the authorization of force in Iraq. It is pretty clear that chemical weapons may exist, but that biological and nuclear weapons are only in the program or development stage. It is easy, as Mr2001 has done to compile quotes from various administration officials showing that they believed Saddam actually had all sorts of WMDs. But when you look into the original statments the case is much less clear.
Personally I think a variety of circumstances led the adminstration to believe the worst estimates of the intelligence community and discount others. They became participants in the “group think” which was pretty rampant at the time. And, FTR, they were not the only ones. There are many reasons to criticize this administration and its handling of the Iraq war. However, lying, pressuring intelligence services, or subverting legal processes is not among them.
I get into trouble when I respond to your glibness with glibness. So allow me to ask for a clarification as afformentioned glibness obscures your meaning. Are you suggesting that “reconstituted nuclear weapons” are actually some sort of devices? Can you explain to me how the word ‘recionstituted’ in this sentence “And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons” is not a verb? Finally, could you put this phrase into the context of the rest of that interview where he was talking about Saddam’s reconstituted nuclear programs? Any clarification you can offer would be appreciated. I am often mistaken about your points. Glibness obscuration I should call it.
Actually, moving troops into position can qualify as an imminent threat. The presence of trained al Qaeda operatives in the US was ample grounds for continuing to fight aQ.
Philosophically, perhaps. But I don’t think such agents would have constituted “moving troops into position” in a strict legal sense. Is it your impression that spys or sabatours constitute a justification for preemptive strikes? I am willing to be wrong. I am not a lawyer or even very familiar with the UN charter. But I think it has some specific (if interpretable) things to say about what constitutes “moving of troops”. I am pretty sure that 20 or 30 trained operatives in country would not apply.
I think the main circumstance that led to it was that the administration wanted to hear the worst estimates. They ignored anyone who said Saddam didn’t have WMD because that isn’t what they wanted to hear.
Is that supposed to excuse them? There were plenty of people at the time saying Saddam had no weapons, or that the trickle of evidence saying he had them was too weak to base a war on. Those people weren’t taken seriously, but they turned out to be right.
Group think is something to be avoided, but this administration seems to intentionally bring group think upon itself by ignoring or firing everyone who voices dissent. Now, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying we should excuse their mistake because they succumbed to group think? That’s the definition of chutzpah. It’s there in the dictionary, right after the kid who killed his parents and begged for mercy because he’s an orphan ;).
Are you saying they didn’t pressure intelligence services, or are you just excusing it?
Well, that is sort of the definition of group think. But I think I have shown that they did not “ignore” anyone who said Saddam didn’t have WMD. They discounted them, perhaps. They did not believe them surely. But they did not ignore them altogether.
If you can find a quote from me excusing anything the Bush administration has done please quote it.
Well, this is where the issue turns on opinion. I don’t think those saying the war was unjustified were, in fact right. There is a good argument to be made, surely. But I differ when it comes to how far we should have been willing to trust Saddam, his regime, or the inspections.
Please quote where I posted this, or the part of any post which gave you this impression.
I’m saying they did not pressure intelligence services. If we are to trust that a mere absence of hard evidence was enough to let Saddam off the hook for possesion of WMD in 2002, then we should accept that a lack of hard evidence against pressuring intelligence services lets Bush off the hook on this charge. No?
Wait… I thought the main purpose was to find and remove the *existing stockpiles * of WMDs… you know, the ones that posed an imminent threat to the USA?
The whole part about “preventing his regime from developing WMDs” is revisionist history from Bush. Sadly, the knuckle-dragging voters are buying into that noise.
What amazes me is that, for such a straight shooting, plain talking administration, you need so much restating, rephrasing, and redefining to know exactly what it is that they are saying.
Okay, I was lying. It doesn’t amaze me. I see it for what it is - piles of bullshit and miles of apologists.
That’s not what I said. I said the people who thought the evidence for Saddam’s possession of WMD was missing or insufficient turned out to be right.
Obviously we should’ve trusted them more than we did, right? Look where we got by relying on our own suspicions instead of anyone who might actually know the truth.
No. There was a process underway to discover whether or not Saddam had WMD, and Bush aborted it - he was not interested in hard evidence. If there had been a process underway to discover whether the Bushites had pressured intelligence services, and Bush’s critics had somehow aborted it, then that might’ve been analogous.
No, it is not. go and read the joint resolution authorizing force. I linked to it in post #24 and provided some of the relevant information. At the very least, stopping Saddam from developing WMD was a very prominent purpose of the war. I’m willing to back off of my “the main purpose” wordage. I did not mean to imply that it was the only purpose of note.
Oh. Your quote indicated that you included the people who thought the evidence was too weak to support war were right.
Still others are not so sure. Here are the conclusions to that report. To wit: “The committee found no evidence that the ICs mischaracterization or exageration of the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the result of political pressure.”
If you are willing to give Saddam a pass because there was no evidence, then you have to do so for the administration, no?
Perhaps, but we are talking about your valuation of hard evidence. If you say that Bush is wrong because he did not look hard enough for hard evidence, then you must hold yourself to that standard as well, no?
Correct. What you said was “I don’t think those saying the war was unjustified were, in fact right”, and maybe I misinterpreted what you meant by “unjustified”. I believe that the people who thought the evidence was too weak to support war were right. The evidence was known to be flimsy at the time, and if the inspectors had been allowed to continue, we would’ve known there was nothing to find before we invaded.
Very well. I find it interesting that the explanations for the conclusions in the report are all blacked out, but I’ll accept that conclusion in the absence of evidence to discredit it.
Again, intentionally stopping a process that would produce evidence is different from listening to an allegation that isn’t yet backed up by evidence. The latter is evidence of an open, perhaps cynical, mind; the former is evidence of a closed mind that doesn’t even want to know about contrary facts. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold the justifications for a war to the highest possible standard.