NM…Fin already posted what I was saying.
-XT
Oh, not really. I simply neglected to archive your every word to grace posterity.
Natch.
The only reason why someone might remember inconsequential details such as Iran’s support for and working relationship with Al Quaeda, would be to remember my words for posterity. Of course, they were the 9/11 Commission’s words, but who needs to pick nits, eh? Content-free snark aimed at me that just so happens to insinuate that the Commisson’s findings were somehow my words, and not the official findings of the Commission? Purely an accident of course. Of course.
In any case, you are totally right. 100%. 110% even.
Why the heck would anybody even want to make sure that they knew the facts before debating them, let alone remembering facts from one thread to another?
All this “learning” or “being a knowledgeable source on a topic which one is posting on” or even that fuzzy headed “fighting ignorance” stuff?
Screw it.
But, let’s be honest, you’ve already added so much valuable content to this thread, that I’m sure you can take a break knowing that you’ve done yeoman’s service in the fight against knowledge.
Take a rest, you’ve earned it.
Iran has been aligned with them for a long time. Where else do they get their weapons?
Mmmm. That second quote, about this fellow “Khallad”. That isn’t a variant spelling of Sheikh Kahlid? The guy who’s testimony is tainted by his subjection to “enhanced interrogation”? And if so, was this fact available to the Committee, that they might reasonably assess the reliability of information gained by such sordid means?
And while you’re about it…
I’m sure this has been “demonstrated” to your satisfaction, but outside of your assertion that it is so, can you offer us anything else?
This may be a hijack, but it seems like we know just the opposite. Nothing, including full-scale military action, ever made Hitler back down. England and France’s appeasement of Hitler is over-rated as a cause of Hitler’s rise to power. There was one act of appeasement to the Germans when they were granted the Sudetenland at the Munich Conference. Coming off the bloodiest war in human history and a peace that many (including the US) thought was overly punitive to Germany, one try at compromise doesn’t seem that unreasonable. Hitler wasn’t satisfied, moved into Poland the following year, and England and France declared war. Knowing what we know of Hitler now, diplomacy wasn’t going to work in any form, but hindsight makes everything obvious. Churchill was saying that Germany would have to be dealt with sooner or later (and clearly he was right), but England wasn’t ready for war in ’38, so while Chamberlain could have taken a harder line at the Munich Conference, he couldn’t have backed it up. Hitler would have taken the Sudeten anyway, and the war might have started a year earlier.
Gee… I wonder if the Report itself says anything? From what I’ve already cited:
So, as a very basic fact, that should tell you that KSM is not Khallad. You could, miracle of miracles, even read the source before trying to disagree with it. Revolutionary, I know. Here is chapter five. You could always, of course, read it. With the onerous burden of 12 seconds of hitting Control-F and then copying and pasting, you would have found:
I know, asking you to spend a whole dozen seconds on learning something before you try to challenge it is certainly beyond the pale. My bad.
I could point out that I’ve already provided that cite in previous threads, and that at the time you were too busy responding with content-free snark (deja vu!) and you’ve now ‘forgotten’ it, again.
I’d point out that it was the very substance of the proposal and in its own words, stated what I have just said. I could waste time on you by quoting the specific verbiage that expressed that if news of the overture got out that, for internal Iranian reasons, the Leader would distance himself from it and not be bound and that, as for the Leader’s own stance, he’d specifically been unwilling to clarify which negotiating points he actually supported and which he didn’t.
I guess I could even point out how, in numerous threads where you’ve adopted the same pattern of interaction with me, I quoted and provided cites for rogue elements within Iran’s political landscape who have broken with the Leader’s wishes and whose support for groups like Hezbollah isn’t dictated by his instructions.
But come on, you refuse to even read the documents I have provided so far in this thread, do you think me so stupid as to treat your posts as if they were good faith debating? You think I’m so bored that I’m willing to re-provide cites I’ve already given to you in other threads, when evidently you didn’t read then, some of 'em you are still refusing to read as of today, and/or whose contents you have conveniently forgotten and ignored as soon as the same debate topic rolled around again?
We’ve now reached a point that I’m sure you’re familiar with. It’s the point where I get fed up with the your posts and refuse to waste any more time playing your little games. You’ve also shown, quite clearly, how you’re approaching this debate. Anybody reading along can figure out, for themselves, what you’re doing.
Adios.
Oh, that’s quite all right, your cooperation is hardly necessary, your argument pretty much self destructs anyway. An argumentum ad seppuku, it disembowels itself as an apology to the Emperor for its existence.
Now, as to the aforementioned Tawfiq al Assah/Khalid SM: the actual identity is a bit beside the point. The fact is that this is testimony from a detainee, one long held in US custody. I wish that I could say with complete assurance that this testimony has the bona fides of being willingly given, untainted by “extraordinary methods”. Of course, knowing what we know now, that’s out of the question.
Now, I cannot peer into these peoples minds, but it seems pretty reasonable that they might very well have taken such testimony with more skepticism if they knew then what we know now.
But, in truth, it hardly matters. The “connection” between Iran and AlQ forms a very small part of the document offered, a cursory glance leaves the impression that you have cut and pasted just about all of the damning evidence, and a rather thin gruel it is, if you discount testimony we have good reason to discount. What remains are inferences and suggestions of a type that I, amongst many, have grown skeptical of.
Are there “contacts” between AlQ and Iran? I daresay, there are “contacts” between AlQ and just about everybody in the ME, at some level or another. The word is nebulous beyond usefulness, its says everything from having each other’s phone number to dark conspiratorial collaboration.
Is that it then? All you were about here was to insist that there were some “contacts” between Iran and AlQ? Not the character or intent of those contacts, not that they are somehow peculiar to Iran and not any of a dozen others? If you don’t attach any significance to that, where is it going to get any?
TWEEEET!
Knock off the personal observations about other posters. Such observations are wholly irrelevant to the discussion and are intended only to raise hackles.
Avoid being jerks.
[ /Moderating ]
Roger tom. Picking a fight about and disputing the contents of an intelligence report which one does not bother to actually read or learn the contents of is fine and doesn’t violate any rules and evidently is conducive to the proper functioning of GD. Attacking such an argument and its associated debate tactics is attacking a person. My mistake.
As it is, I already voluntarily said that I’d refrain from attacking the presentation, support, methodology and willful ignorance of luc’s argument, as the intention of such elucidation, namely showing that said argument is a totally worthless, obfuscative, rationalizing bit of sophistry, has already been accomplished. That any objective and rational member of the peanut gallery could come to any other conclusion is, to say the least, implausible. So you shouldn’t have any problems on that front.
Still, I can’t in good conscience fail to point out where that argument contains claims that are, simply, bullshit. If you won’t stop people from inventing claims about documents they’ve not even read, it will fall to other people, I’m afraid, to do so.
So although I’m done responding to 'luc and trying to get him to put forward an argument about the Commission Report that was based on the Commission Report, I’d be remiss as a Doper if I let people reading along be deceived by any of the fictions he presented, even if you’re fine with such ‘debating’.
Fiction: the 9/11 Commission did not know about US interrogation tactics and might have made a different call if they had known.
Truth: The Commission closed August 21, 2004. The Final Report was issued on July 22, 2004.
Stories about US interrogators using torture had been widespread in the years before that.
A small and non-comprehensive list:
March, 2002.
August, 2002. December, 2002. january 2003. March, 2003.
November, 2003.
And, of course, a specific list of Gitmo practices was released months before the Commission closed.
Fiction: We cannot rule out the possibility that Khallad was tortured to obtain information.
Truth: We have very, very good reasons to deny such an absurd, groundless claim.
For instance, during his tribunal, in 2007, Khallad’ did indeed make objections about his treatment and the claims against him. Conspicuously absent are any claims of torture. One would think that if he were tortured to obtain a false confession of any sort, he’d, ya know, say so as long as he was claiming other things had been done wrong.
In fact, the story of Attash is interesting precisely because he appeared to not be under duress.
[
](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/washington/20cole.html?scp=1&sq=+Attash&st=nyt)
The only rational conclusion is that claims of torture are, simply, fabricated.
Fiction: The relationship between Iran and Al Quaeda was not substantial, could be ignored even if Attash had been tortured and represented contacts that might have been as simple as having someone’s phone number (there aren’t enough electrons for all the rolleyes that deserves).
Truth: The relationship included high level contacts between AQ and Iranian intelligence, the deals which were struck that we know about including: training in explosives. Training in intelligence. Training in security. And allowing AQ members to pass through Iran without identifying passport stamps so as to keep their movements better hidden.
Moreover, the proof for Iran training AQ with explosives, intel and security didn’t come from torture. Or from any policies that President George W. Bush, or his administration for that matter, initiated. And, while I’m at it, much of the proof didn’t even come from the 21st century. What is the proof?
This level of disingenuousness is (or was) beneath you.
Not one of these quoted passages does anything to support your position or move the discussion along. They are posted for no reason other than to allow you to express negative comments about other posters while staying under the “no insults” rules.
Now, you will note that I did not single you out for my admonition because you are not the only poster who has made such comments in this thread.
You will also note that I have not included in my list your personal comments that were direct responses to other posters’ personal comments; I quoted only those passages that were needless posturing.
If I tell all posters to stop an action and you stand up and claim that you were the one addressed, I am going to figure that your original actions were deliberately intended to inflame.
You are turning into a second tier Collounsbury, posting a lot of good information, but needlessly including language that is guaranteed to offend. You lack only the specific name-calling (and some of the accuracy) that Col brought to the board.
If you wish to continue to post the information you find important, then ratchet back the personal hostility. If you figure that your message cannot be delivered without the personal invective, then go find another message board to inhabit.
This goes back to the odd idea that you have expressed that anyone who does not agree with your sources and your interpretation of them must be “trolling” because they are ignoring the Obvious Truth that you have presented. Since you continue to maintain that position after several discussions over many months, I doubt that you will be persuaded that that view is incorrect, now.
However, while I am pretty sure that I have made this point in previous discussion, I will reiterate that regardless of your personal views,
(1)it is not my place as Moderator to tell people to stop posting inaccurate information (or drawing illogical conclusions)–it is the point of the debate to demonstrate faulty information or logic, not comment on the posters who provided it;
(2) it is not your place to make the issue personal. The discussions in this Forum frequently run to high levels of personal passion. Making the interactions of posters personal does nothing to allow any discussion to proceed, because it invariably derails the discussion into a hijack over who was more rude sooner or who has the worse table manners. If you cannot post without the personal stuff, just go open a Pit thread and link it from the thread in GD.
[ /Moderating ]
Not true. There had been three earlier acts of appeasement, when Hitler was allowed to rearm, institute conscription, and build an Air Force in violation of the Treaty of Versailles; (2) when he re-militarized the Rhineland; and (3) when he invaded and annexed Austria. At any one of these points Hitler could have been stopped at far lower cost than was eventually necessary, and had this happened he may well have been overthrown in a military coup.
On the contrary, a fourth try at appeasement with a megalomaniacal racist dictator, which involved the dismemberment of a sovereign country whom France had solemnly vowed by treaty to defend, seems staggeringly, mind-numbingly unreasonable.
I’m sure the authors of this thread would rather debate Iran than Munich, but I can’t let your comments pass without response.
This was kind of my point about how loaded with hindsight our judgments of Chamberlain are. Hitler didn’t ‘invade’ Austria. The newly appointed Nazi Austrian Chancellor invited the German army into the country and voluntary unified Austria with Germany. The re-militarization of the Rhineland was, literally, a handful of troops on bicycles, and it was welcomed by a lot of the local population because of ruthlessness of the French troops that had occupied the region for decades. I agree with you on your first point, for what it’s worth.
Clearly someone should have jumped on Hitler with both feet at the earliest opportunity, but it’s easy to be a wise and decisive world leader from an armchair 80 years after the fact.
Wow.
Actually, I was talking about how I showed that elucidator was arguing about an intelligence report that he hadn’t actually read, whose contents he didn’t actually know, whose facts he’d been presented with many times and casually ‘forgotten’ several times, etc…
I had no idea that you’d been sensitive enough to think that my suggestion that squeels learn about the topic before writing OP’s on it was somehow a personal attack. Direct personal insults are forbidden in this forum tom, direct personal addresses are not. In fact, pointing out that other posters are posting from a position of ignorance is, also, not only not allowed but you yourself have specifically said that even the quasi-insult “you are ignorant” is perfectly acceptable. I guess, at least when I’m not saying something similar.
I’d hope, actually, that squeels took my post to heart. He seems like a decent enough fellow, and perhaps realizing that he’s almost totally uninformed about the issue might prompt him to do some research next time before starting a debate.
I think that’s a rather good pattern of behavior to get in. I’m baffled as why you could possibly think it aint.
Oh, and the two quotes about how elucidator was refusing to read the report (where it clearly identified who Khallad was) but was still perfectly willing to try to argue about it. proving that his argument going to be reflexively contrary regardless of what the facts were? Indeed, that his argument didn’t even pretend to be based on facts, but instead, simply a desire to argue? Don’t give me any bullshit about how that’s a different “interpretation”. You can’t interpret what you refuse to read.It is disingenuous of you to pretend that such groundless criticisms are “interpretations” and good-faith debating.
Again, pointing out that someone has seen a specific cite several times and doesn’t want to talk about my interpretation of it, but acts as if they’ve never seen it while asking for it, yet again? Again, that evinces an argument that is based not on a discussion of the facts, but a fact-free determination to argue a pre-conceived position. It reveals an argument as an ad-hoc rationalization, whose statements cannot be taken seriously and whose challenges should be assumed to be fictional unless proven otherwise. Much as you without a mod hat on, and many posters have a habit of pointing out that lekatt repeatedly posts cites that he claims are research that really aren’t, and that even after they’ve shown not to be research, he posts them again with the same claim.
But I know, I know, it’s okay when everybody else does it, horrible when I do.
I mean, fuck, I’ve already shown on what, half a dozen particulars, that elucidator has no problem raising spurious objections to facts which he remains wilfully ignorant of, from criticizing the source of a report that has, in giant letters on literally very other page “The 9/11 Commission Report” to claiming that a man the Report clearly identifies, might just have been another man who was tortured, because their names look alike if you haven’t actually read the Report, to claiming that facts in the Report which weren’t even based on Khallad’s testimony are invalidated because Khallad sounds like Khallid and Khallid was tortured.
If that doesn’t show that an argument is simply based around arguing instead of adding and refuting facts, what does?
Oh, and, seriously? Give up the psychoanalysis. Or the attempts at mind reading, I’m just not sure. If you were curious, you could have asked. You know me well enough to know that I’m ruthlessly honest.
This kind of bullshit is (or was) beneath you.
And if I’m staying under the “no insults” rule, then I’m not violating GD rules. Especially since you, yourself, have specifically allowed such ‘negative’ comments as telling someone that they are various degrees of fantastically ignorant.
But again, I guess when I do it…
Actually tom, if you tell several posters that they have done something and I am obviously being included in what you’ve said, then I’ll assume that it applies to me as well. To use your favorite word again, it is disingenuous of you to voice a criticism which you admit applies to me, and then when I react as if it applies to me, you pretend that my actions were “deliberately intended to inflame”.
I’ve violated not one board rule. As you yourself have said, I haven’t crossed GD’s rule against insults, so you’ve invented a new rule about personal hostility. Hostility which you have to invent, anyway. And don’t give me “being a jerk”, because you allow (and engage in) the same behavior yourself sans mod hat.
If nothing else, hopefully you can be introspective enough to realize that you wrote a general statement which you admit applies to me, and then when I responded to the trap and acted as if I was also being included, you used that as some bizarre sort of ‘proof’ that I’d been intentionally trying to piss people off. All this with some sort of quasi-final warning about finding another message board?
You should be ashamed of yourself.
I have never, ever, ever, ever claimed that people who interpret something differently than I are, thus, trolls. Never. Not once. In fact, I’ve spelled out, in numerous PM’s whose contents you’re distorting and making public, exactly what my claims were. And you know I can’t even flesh out my argument here, because then you’d accuse me of calling other posters ‘trolls’ outside of the Pit.
Shame on you.
In any case, someone who posts information that is not accurate, which they know cannot be accurate, or whose accuracy they don’t even bother to check since it allows them to argue? They’re doing something far different than just posting innocently, eh?
Never mind. Having never read the Gospels, I am now going to go create a thread where I allege that Catholicism is a cannibal-inspired faith dedicated to molesting little children. And I will refuse to read any Papal Bulls or official statement of any sort on doctrine or theology, all the while doing my best to argue because arguing is just nifty.
I trust that’d be fine, eh. Eh?
But whatever tom. I’ll stop posting in this this thread. Heck, I’ll be happy to take a little vacation until you’re ready to apply the same rules you use for yourself as a poster and everybody else in GD, to me.
I look forward to Elucidator saying that the Report is inaccurate because it was staffed by 100% Republicans, or AIPAC, or whatever.
Ignorance fights back with mod backing.
I must be dreaming, but I just came across this:
*Except these days, it’s all about Ahmadinejad.
FinnAgain your criticism is well played. Now if only any number of media pundits were routinely subjected to that kind of rebuking on their shows.
But pointing out that there has been some cooperation between Iran and Al Qaeda does not undermine my point. They are not joined at the hip and AQ is not conducting terrorist attacks in order to blackmail the US into making major concessions to Iran, let alone simply establishing diplomatic contacts.
Well there you go. In the post-9/11 anti-terrorist backlash environment, been seen as supporting AQ was embarrassing or potentially worse. Deft use of both media exposure and behind-the-scenes arm-twisting might have had some potential to lure them away from the dark side a little bit.
The mainstream interpretation of Ahmadinejad’s stated desire to see “the occupying regime wiped from the map” is that Iran is determined to attack Israel with nuclear weapons and not only cannot be deterred, but any diplomatic initiative would make it more likely in the same way that the Munch conference is believed to have made WWII more likely. I don’t think that’s a correct interpretation of the facts.
Well then we should be exposing these factions–and the Supreme Leader’s lack of control over them–in the international media and playing them off against each other rather than treating Iran as monolithic and incorrigably evil.
We’re not acting as though there’s any difference between us and Israel, and I guess there isn’t.
I thought you made it clear the that Al Quaeda are Iran’s point men in attacking the US.
It’s 1938 in Bushworld. Where is our relationship with Iran headed?
Tell that to Barak Obama.
MSNBC said today that Gallup has put out a poll in which people were asked whether meeting with the president of Iran is a good idea. Those who said yes were Democrats 71%, Independents 58%, and — interestingly — Republicans 48%.
Since that seems to be the content of about 90% of religiously-themed OPs in Great Debates these days, I’m going to guess that it will, indeed, be fine.
Shoot, I’m not even talking about a full-blown presidential summit. That’s premature, and I think Ahmadinejad’s importance is overstated.
I’m talking about a sophisticated, back-door, carrot-and-stick, good-cop/bad-cop, triangulating diplomatic initiative. And also that we were in a much better position to get results in the immediate post-9/11 period than we are now.
A majority of American’s initially supported the invasion of Iraq to…and re-elected GW Bush. Why do you think that a majority thinking we should ahve some direct talks with Iran lends weight to your argument?
How is that different than what we have been doing with the US/EU talking to Iran (good cop/bad cop and carrot and stick and all that)? Seems we are already doing that with Iran at least. I think we are PROBABLY even engaging in back door good cop/bad cop talks with North Korea for that matter.
-XT