Good question, I do think Sam once again relied too much on questionable sources, the main point I like to do in discussions like this related on information versus ideology is that one has to avoid sources that demonstratively got it wrong, life is too short to depend on sources that burned one real good before, If one continues to rely on them… “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”… Uh, well, you know what Bush was trying to say about being fooled. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/04/EDGQIF5U1L1.DTL&ao=all#ixzz1m569RepE
But this is disingenuous. The intelligence services of everyone else were not proclaiming Iraq to be in possession of WMD. Rather, the intelligence services of France, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and Israel were noting that Iraq had failed to properly account for the totality of its past proscribed weapons programs, and in doing so left open the possibility that Iraq might retain an undetermined amount of WMD. There is a huge difference in substance and nuance between such assessments and the hyped-up assertions by the Bush administration concerning active programs dedicated to the reconstitution of WMD, as well as the existence of massive stockpiles of forbidden weaponry.
-Scott Ritter, Former U.N. weapons inspector.
What I do remember is that before the invasion there was already plenty of evidence gathered on the field to show that there was no evidence of that remaining amount being available for Saddam, and even some rockets that were found to go over the range limits imposed (no nuclear or chemical or bio weapons involved) were destroyed on camera and in front of inspectors.
I remember that by then the intelligence from France Russia and other nations was telling their leaders that that was not enough then to justify a war. As the Downing Street memos showed later, the intelligence of the USA was being pushed to just find compromised evidence to support a predetermined conclusion.
Mr.Svinlesha:
He’s perfectly willing to admit there were no WMDs, but he’s not willing to admit that he was wrong when he argued incessantly, for months prior to the invasion, that there were.
Un-fucking-believable.
Yes, his constant claims to that effect, as if it were fact (and demands that the Americans go do something about it so he could safely watch it on his new flatscreen, having exhausted his supply of John Wayne movies) are a matter of fact . It’s all still in the archives here, ya know, Sammy - and we also know you don’t really want to bring that up.
It wasn’t your fucking opinion , Sam , you coward. You got lied to, you bought the lie, and constantly regurgitated that lie as fact . Your refusal to accept responsibility for your statements or your actions is one of the things that lie at the heart of the low regard you’ve earned for yourself here, and no doubt many other venues in your life.
And you haven’t yet seen a criticism of them that you wouldn’t characterize as an “attack” or “silly”. Come on now.
Not “Republican” opinion. Yours.
[quote\But in fact, when I agree with the Republicans it’s precisely because I think that it’s YOUR plans that would be detrimental to the interests of the nation and the world. [/quote]
But you’re incapable of seeing that, because you’re such an unblinking ideologue that you’re incapable of envisioning a situation where your political opponent might have a differing opinion because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, and that he came to his decision using logic and education just like you think you do, only starting from a different world view.
Look up “projection”, when you’re done learning what “facts” are, willya?
Disregards,
GIGObuster:
I only expect other nations like China to suffer the consequences of civilian unrest if they do not do anything, we will have to act just to face the costs of adaptation, but then again as the Republicans assume that there is no problem…
Consequences like having to wash blood off of their tank treads?
Even that has limits when you affect the life of millions by doing nothing, but that was rhetoric to reply to the idea that it would be silly for us to make efforts to change our behavior when others are not doing so, I do know that China is making things worse now, but it will also be more ready than us to change when more people demand it.
And as much as we do disapprove of the Chinese government the fact that they got rid of the command economy a long rime ago means that other factors will make it move forward on this, factors like the needs from places like California and Australia makes industry from China to do a big effort on Solar and wind power, the angle that many right wing sources are using now is an attempt to discredit alternatives by saying that solar is not working in the USA, but this is only as a source of manufacturing jobs, the investing therefore should concentrate on the deployment (and that also makes jobs too) of what is now becoming a cheaper alternative.
Sam_Stone:
Let’s revisit the WMD debate for a second, to clear up a misconception. You guys are framing the debate now as one in which I said there were WMDs, and you said there weren’t, and therefore you were right and I was wrong.
The truth is more nuanced than that. What you actually claimed was that Bush was lying about WMDs to come up with an excuse for war. What I argued was that it wasn’t just Bush, but the intelligence agencies of all major countries, including countries like France and Russia who opposed the war, who believed Saddam had WMDs. So Bush wasn’t ‘lying’ - he was relying on the best estimates of the experts who were supposed to be in a position to know. And I felt that on that issue, it was best to defer to the experts, and if they said there were WMDs, that was good enough for me. The head of the CIA himself said that the case for WMDs was a ‘slam dunk’.
Wow. One could not have asked for a better example of Sam Stone’s behavior on these boards and his INCREDIBLY bullshit post-hoc reframing and justification. Sam , you’re such a weasel. A bullshit artist of the highest caliber. If you had an ounce of integrity, you’d simply acknowledge what you did and why you were wrong. On these boards, you were as much of a cheerleader for war with Iraq as you were for the Bush economic policies that you now pretend you did not cheerlead for.
Here’s just a small sample of posts that turn up when searching for “Sam Stone” and “weapons.” Check out the air of superior authority that seeps from every pore. Look at the deriding comments, the smug condescension about what people should know and how silly it would be for someone to underestimate the threat that Saddam poses. How about “At some point you just have to trust” Bush?
Sam, you’re a no-good piece of shit.http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2335950&postcount=15
Directly on the OP, Senator Joe Biden, a Democrat who is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that war with Iraq is likely.
MSNBC News - Breaking News and News Today | Latest News
As for inspections, I have ZERO confidence in the ability of inspectors to find and destroy Saddam’s WMD. He has had 10 years to hide his programs, and from all accounts he’s been feverishly doing just that. Nuclear labs are in the backs of trucks, which move around the country. Some facilities are hidden underground. Other facilities are ‘mobile’ in the sense that they can be completely torn down and trucked away with a few hours’ notice.
Iraq is a huge country. Inspecting for weapons there is kind of like saying the U.N. is going to inspect France to make sure there aren’t any drug labs, when those drug labs have the resources of a state for hiding. Good luck.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2336435&postcount=20
A few points:
The reason Saddam doesn’t want to let inspectors back in to the country is partly because he doesn’t want them finding his WMD programs, but also because of the loss of face that entails. Saddam made a lot of hay with his people when the inspectors left, grandstanding about how he kicked them all out of the country. Letting them back in now would not look good for him.
I think we’re all just making guesses as to how hard it is to hide a nuclear program. This isn’t the Manhattan project we’re talking about. Designing nuclear weapons nowadays is more about building the right kind of detonators and explosives. That kind of work can be hidden in small labs. And I’ve read reports that that is exactly what Saddam has done - his WMD program is largely carried out in extremely well equipped trucks that move around the country in a continual shell game. There are entire underground warrens inside some of the cities, and materials can be moved a long way without observation.
Another big risk (perhaps THE biggest) is that Saddam will release smallpox on Israel or the U.S. It’s no coincidence that the U.S. is frantically ramping up its ability to vaccinate the population. It’s also no coincidence that the U.S. ‘discovered’ an ‘unknown’ cache of smallpox vaccine that just happened to be enough to vaccinate the country. I don’t know if this stuff exists or not, but I’m sure the announcement was intended as a deterrant to prevent terrorists from using it. Smallpox can be contained in the U.S., but the blowback into the 3rd world and the middle east (including Arab nations) would be horrendous to contemplate.
I also think some people are not characterizing this debate well. NO ONE in government is trying to say that Saddam isn’t a risk. They’re not even saying he’s a mild risk. They all agree that letting Saddam continue in power is extremely hazardous to us. The problem is that an invasion could potentially be very, very difficult, and could also help precipitate some of the very things we’re worried about.
So if you’re trying to claim that Saddam really isn’t all that dangerous, you’re taking an extreme position that almost no one accepts.
But here’s the nightmare scenario for an invasion: Saddam seems to be preparing for urban guerilla warfare. Reports are that he is fortifying the cities, building machine gun nests with overlapping fields of fire in main streets, building tunnels beneath the cities for soldiers to move through, armoring buildings, etc.
So here’s the way it could go down: The U.S. invades, and meets token resistance. The Iraqis rapidly fall back into the cities. And now the U.S. is faced with a battle that is guaranteed to create high profile civilian casualties. Think about that bomb Israel dropped on that building last week. Think about the world reaction. What are they going to say when the U.S. has to go in and do the same thing a thousand times over?
And Saddam is ruthless enough to use women and children as human shields. You watch - a missile will come flying out of a building, the U.S. will flatten it, and it’ll turn out to be full of children.
Saddam knows he can’t win an all-out war. So instead, he’ll try for a siege war played out in the media, and try to get world opinion on his side. And if that doesn’t work, he can always launch his extant WMD inventory at Israel.
No matter what the ultimate decision on Iraq is, I suspect we’re all heading into a very dangerous time.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2401852&postcount=47
Lest you guys think I’m a hawk about this, I too have my doubts. My biggest worry is that Saddam will try to engage the U.S. in siege warfare. He has been fortifying his cities, especially Baghdad. Reports are that he has built a huge number of tunnels and cutouts between buildings to allow soldiers to move around from building to building without taking to the streets. He has reinforced buildings, installed machine-gun nests, and divided his cities into a number of autonomous districts with their own food supplies and redundant channels of communication.
If he pulls 50,000 loyal troops into Baghdad, and they start fighting from rooftops and windows, it’s going to get real ugly. Urban warfare is every war planner’s nightmare. Look at how much destruction and world condemnation Israel has suffered just trying to get a handful of terrorists in the occupied territories. Now imagine a huge city full of them, with the resources of a wealthy state behind them. They’ll have anti-tank rockets, mines, booby traps, chemical and biological weapons, etc. And, Saddam is ruthless enough to make sure that situations arise that result in the deaths of many, many civilians. A rocket will fly out of a window at a U.S. tank, the U.S. will destroy the building - and it will turn out to be full of children, with the soldiers long gone through a cutout. How many scenes of dead women and children will the U.S public tolerate before support collapses?
Saddam can’t ‘win’ in a military sense, but he can ‘win’ if he can turn the tide of opinion against the U.S. and force them to back down. Arafat has stayed in power for decades against a much bigger and stronger opponent; Saddam may have learned something from that.
But the big question remains: does Saddam have nukes or really scary biological weapons, and does he intend to use them against us when the opportunity presents itself? If so, then that risk is unacceptable, and war is necessary.
Unfortunately, the most critical information about that possibility is probably classified. So at some point you have to trust the government.
I will say this, though - if the Bush administration goes to war without the approval of Congress (which I think is a bad idea), then it had better be prepared to release reams of intelligence information justifying this at the soonest possible moment that it is safe to do so.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2425435&postcount=72
Having read the article, I’m having a hard time seeing what the fuss is about.
Look: There is still evidence that pointed to Iraq after the first WTC attack. Saddam tried to kill Bush I. When a large coordinated attack hit the United States, everyone knew there were two likely culprits: Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.
And we don’t know what kind of intelligence Rumsfeld was receiving. In the heat of ‘battle’, things get confusing. There were probably reports flying in right and left, some right, some wrong. There was probably brainstorming going on along the lines of, “Who did this, and why, and what are they going to do now?”
Saddam is in charge of a fairly powerful state. If he WAS involved, minutes count in case he’s about to release, say, 100 drones full of chemical or biological weapons.
Then there’s this fact: The U.S. DIDN’T attack Saddam. Maybe there’s a later memo where Rumsfeld says, “Let’s back off a bit here - the newest evidence we are receiving is not pointing at Saddam anymore.”
In other words, I think you guys are really reaching here. Also, I think some of you don’t realize just how aggressive Saddam has been in the last few years, and why that might lead the administration to be more concerned about him than are people who don’t follow the day-to-day events around Iraq.
For example, if your job is to regularly peruse defense briefing like this, don’t be surprised if ‘Iraq’ is the first thing to spring to mind when the U.S. is attacked.
Then again, this may in fact be a sign of complete Paranoia by Rumsfeld. There’s just not enough evidence to draw any sort of conclusion.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2425857&postcount=77
Saddam indeed has a great capacity for self-preservation. But he also has gigantic balls, to the point of insanity. There have been almost daily missile strikes in Iraq because Saddam continues to attempt to shoot down American airplanes. And there have been a number of serious incidents such as when Saddam mobilized his military and lined up on the Kuwait border.
In 1998, a lucky hit by a U.S. bomber blew the roof off a hanger in Iraq, and exposed 8 drone aircraft designed to carry chemical or biological weapons. That’s one hangar. How many more of those are there?
And the bottom line is that Saddam has been willing to forego billions of dollars in revenue for the sole reason of keeping weapons inspectors out of the country. That’s not the act of someone with nothing to hide.
If you haven’t read the Iraq accounts in the link I posted earlier, you should. By the time you get to the end of all the various attacks and manoevers, the picture of Saddam that you’re left with is as a caged tiger, pacing back and forth just trying to find a way to break out.
That’s the context under which Rumsfeld was thinking of Iraq when suddenly the U.S. was hit by four major coordinated attacks. Of course Rumsfeld’s Iraq alarm went off. It pretty much had to. The important question is how the dilemma was eventually resolved without the U.S. firing a shot until it knew exactly who was responsible.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2428331&postcount=11
I lean towards thinking that the Bush has intelligence information that it has shared with Blair. But we’ll find out soon enough, because the administration is starting to leak this info out to the public to shore up support.
For example, this just came out in the last few days. There was also information about a 1998 bombing in Iraq that fortuitously blew the roof off of a hangar - revealing 8 new types of remote controlled drone aircraft with hoppers for delivering chemical or biological weapons.
We’ll know soon enough. Bush is about to embark on his mission to enlist allies and the Congress in the war, and he’s going to have to provide most of what he knows in order to gain that support.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2429479&postcount=34
Some of you people are in serious denial about the threat posed by Iraq. You act as if having an unstable dictatorship acquire nuclear weapons is no big deal. Hey, we’ve got them, right? Israel’s got them. Why not Iraq?
The fact is, every intelligence analyst knows that once Saddam has the bomb he’ll be waving it around like a big club to demand what he wants. He’ll be back in Kuwait in a flash, and this time he’ll threaten the total destruction of Israel if there is retaliation.
Nuclear Brinksmanship with an insane dictator is not something that would be good for humanity. There is near universal agreement on this everywhere but apparently the SDMB.
At least learn what the debate is about. It’s not about whether Iraq is dangerous if it has nuclear weapons. It is. It’s not whether or not Saddam is capable of harming his neighbors or U.S. servicemen in the Gulf. He is.
The debate revolves around the solution to what all serious people recognize as the problem - Saddam can NOT be allowed to get his hands on nuclear weapons. The big debate right now is between three camps: The first is the U.N. position, which is that U.N. inspectors can control the situation. But even Khofi Annan has said that for inspectors to work Iraq MUST allow them in without any condition whatsoever. And Saddam has already refused that position.
The second camp is typified by the ex-Bush I experts like James Baker and Brent Scowcroft. They believe that Bush II should do what Bush I did, and build an international coalition before going after Saddam. They don’t disagree with regime change - they disagree about the way to go about it. Call them the Internationalists.
The third camp is the Bush administration and Tony Blair, who believe that the evidence shows that Saddam has proceeded too far already, and must be toppled now. It’s prudent to remember that the people at this level have access to classified information that the ‘outside critics’ don’t have. That doesn’t make them right, but it’s a factor to consider before you throw their opinion away.
That’s about it. I don’t know of anyone other than some Arab states who are saying, “Leave Saddam alone.” And even the Arab states who are saying that publically may be privately siding with the U.S. - after all, Saddam is their biggest threat if left unchecked.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2437667&postcount=2
Lack of external evidence through satellite photos and such is pretty meaningless, don’t you think? After all, Iraq knows the U.S. watches them by satellite, so why would they build their facilities out in the open?
The fact is, there haven’t been weapons inspectors inside Iraq for four years. But there is plenty of indirect evidence that Saddam is building up his WMD - for example, the shipment of Uranium-refining centrifuge parts that were just intercepted on their way to Iraq.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2443823&postcount=38
There’s no point in trying to claim that Saddam Hussein does not want nuclear weapons. He clearly does. He wants them so badly he has chosen to suffer hundreds of billions of dollars of economic damage through sanctions rather than give up his WMD programs.
Saddam wants to create a new Caliphate in the Middle East with Baghdad at its center. He sees himself as the natural true leader of the Arab world. He’s also a posturing blowhard and a megalomaniac.
He’s exactly the type of lunatic who might convince himself that if he nuked Tel Aviv and threatened other European countries in order to keep them away, Arabs throughout the Middle East would leap to embrace him as their natural leader. With their enthusiastic welcome, he would invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and use the enormous clout of the combined oil fields plus the threat of his nuclear weapons to raise the stature of the Arab world. Once they have the power, they will have the ability to stand toe-to-toe with the west and assume a position of power and honor in the world!
Why do you think Saddam is paying suicide bombers? It’s PR. He wants to be loved through the Arab world. Uncle Saddam. He wants to be loved so badly that he forces his entire country to wear a smile at gunpoint. Every home and shop is littered with portraits of Saddam, because the secret police is everywhere. Smile, damn you. Saddam is your glorious leader.
Not that I think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of Saddam’s plans working out, but that’s the kind of raving vision that madmen take to their graves - along with a lot of innocent people.
Hands down, no more calls, we have a winner. The SDMB Official Sam Stone Archivist and Archeologist is Hentor . He has exhibited relentless diligence in the truest spirit, fighting ignorance by mocking the ignorant. He has exhibited iron-willed patience and strength of resolve, charactristics I can heartily endorse without the least intention of emulating.
Pip, pip. Good show, that!
elucidator:
Hands down, no more calls, we have a winner. The SDMB Official Sam Stone Archivist and Archeologist is Hentor . He has exhibited relentless diligence in the truest spirit, fighting ignorance by mocking the ignorant. He has exhibited iron-willed patience and strength of resolve, charactristics I can heartily endorse without the least intention of emulating.
Pip, pip. Good show, that!
You’re too kind. But I can’t take any particular pride in this one. It was fruit that couldn’t have been more low hanging. A quick search and a cut and paste of really just the first several ones. Sam made this one too easy.
“Search”? “Cut and paste”? These things are not known to my people.
Well, he was right about one thing:
It just wasn’t Saddam who pulled us into that “very dangerous time.”
…Maybe there’s a later memo where Rumsfeld says, “Let’s back off a bit here - the newest evidence we are receiving is not pointing at Saddam anymore.”
In other words, I think you guys are really reaching here…
(emphasis added)
This is classic Sam Stone . Guileless and utterly innocent of irony or self-awareness. Canadian, you know.
casdave
February 11, 2012, 8:04pm
1012
I’m still wondering when the police officers who took part in the original and ‘incompetent’ investigation will be arrested and charged.
They seem to prefer being called useless as coppers rather than competent at taking bribes. I just refuse to believe they were so crap that they missed all the evidence accidentally. I know is that it smacks of conspiracy theory, but I can’t help but think there are plenty of senior people at various levels that have been selling each other out.
You only have to look at how certain stories leak out, it not all hacking, or rather it is incredibly well guided hacking - and that guidance has to start somewhere.
The stuff Hentor posted of Sam’s reminds me of my other main gripe about Sam (besides those I’ve already mentioned in this thread): he’s an absolute sucker for right-wing glurge. Like:
[Saddam] has been fortifying his cities, especially Baghdad. Reports are that he has built a huge number of tunnels and cutouts between buildings to allow soldiers to move around from building to building without taking to the streets. He has reinforced buildings, installed machine-gun nests, and divided his cities into a number of autonomous districts with their own food supplies and redundant channels of communication.
No really, who believed this shit even in the fall of 2002 or winter of 2003, unless they really wanted to get all amped up on this stuff?
The really sad part is that, unlike Shodan, Sam appears smart enough not to get caught up in this stuff. He can learn, but chooses not to.
ElvisL1ves:
The really sad part is that, unlike Shodan, Sam appears smart enough not to get caught up in this stuff. He can learn, but chooses not to.
I think it’s a little worse than that. He’s smart enough to take obvious bullshit and write about it in a way that some find convincing and compelling.
He doesn’t choose not to. He actively advocates, pushing right wing spin with such fervor that I’ve often thought it goes beyond avocation to vocation.
Everyone who has posted in this thread is a horrible person who should go away and never show their face in public again. Except me.
You had to wake this thread up after a week just to say that?
Docta_G
February 17, 2012, 10:36pm
1019
I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever understand.
I might have, too. Can’t remember.
