# Oh, lordy, this should be good: Moore visits O'Reilly tonight **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 27, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137 "2004-07-27T18:25:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/161 "2004-07-28T20:09:08Z")
Firm? That sounds rather like a goalpost that might move a time or two, and frankly, I’m too old to go chasing it. They all had the same intelligence. Whether it was firm, I leave to the Congress in charge of overseeing it. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/162 "2004-07-28T21:28:30Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > Action? It ain’t a video game. 13,000 dead Iraqis, 900 dead Americans and another 12,000 Americans with severe wounds. > > Hoo-boy, wasn’t that fun. See, this is what I don’t understand about people like you. Hussein murdered, by all accounts, over a million of his own citizens during his reign. That works out to over 28,000 people a year, year in and year out, for every year he was in power. And this doesn’t even take into account the millions more who were tortured and terrorized under his rule. In addition, some half a million were killed in his war with Iran, and a similar number of Iranians were killed as well. There’s another million. Add to this the number of Iraqis that died as a result of ineffective sanctions that didn’t mean squat to Hussein. So even including the so-called 13,000 dead Iraqis, most of whom were military personnel trying to kill our soldiers, there were and are still fewer people dying in Iraq since our action began than were dying under Hussein. And the rate of killing, of course, has dropped tremendously since Hussein’s military has been defeated. Do you care about human life in general, or only those whose loss seems to bolster your own objections to the war? If you care about human life in toto, I would think your response would be positive, as is mine. And oh, yeah…he doesn’t have (and won’t get) WMD. That’s a good thing for his neighboring countries, for Israel, and for us, as there’s no chance any Iraqi WMD will fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/163 "2004-07-28T21:59:40Z")
Oh, goody! We can keep this shit up indefinitely and still be able to tell the world we aren’t quite as bad as Saddam. Makes your chest swell with pride, doesn’t it? You don’t get it and apparently don’t want to. Do you disagree that we’ve killed a lot of people we didn’t have to? Or that we’ve tortured a lot of others for no good reason? WE did that, not Saddam. It’s been our problem ever since Bush made it our problem, and the consequences from that point on have been ours, too. But all you can point to is a questionable, unknown body count now vs. an uncited body count from before - btw, cite? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/164 "2004-07-28T22:01:24Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Most of the countries in Europe? > > Bush didn’t order shit, he probably made it worth his old boy Putin’s while to make some vague off the cuff comment. Same shit for blair. Who else did we miss? I think you misunderstand, there, **Worldie**. If you will give my comment–a rhetorical question actually–a closer look, you’ll see that there is a question mark at the end. I was responding to **ElvisL1ves** ’ assertion that everyone who said Iraq had WMD was _ordered_ by Bush to say so. This is clearly ridiculous, and the intention of my post was to point this out. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/165 "2004-07-28T22:04:26Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > See, this is what I don’t understand about people like you. Hussein murdered, by all accounts, over a million of his own citizens during his reign. That works out to over 28,000 people a year, year in and year out, for every year he was in power. And this doesn’t even take into account the millions more who were tortured and terrorized under his rule. In addition, some half a million were killed in his war with Iran, and a similar number of Iranians were killed as well. There’s another million. Add to this the number of Iraqis that died as a result of ineffective sanctions that didn’t mean squat to Hussein. > > So even including the so-called 13,000 dead Iraqis, most of whom were military personnel trying to kill our soldiers, there were and are still fewer people dying in Iraq since our action began than were dying under Hussein. And the rate of killing, of course, has dropped tremendously since Hussein’s military has been defeated. > > Do you care about human life in general, or only those whose loss seems to bolster your own objections to the war? If you care about human life in toto, I would think your response would be positive, as is mine. > > And oh, yeah…he doesn’t have (and won’t get) WMD. That’s a good thing for his neighboring countries, for Israel, and for us, as there’s no chance any Iraqi WMD will fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. Unfortunately I don’t have time to look up cites for this, but from what I’ve read 1. The U.S. has played loosey-goosey with Hussein for years, building him up when it suited our needs and invading when we felt like it. He’s a despot, so what were we doing providing arms? The reason we “knew” he had WMD is 'cause he got 'em from us. I think it was Rumsfeld who described him as an ally some years ago; I know I’ve seen photographs of them together, shaking hands and smiling. 2. They wouldn’t have been trying to kill our soldiers had our soldiers not been present. And I think the 13,000 is the civilian count, not the military, although I’m not positive. As my Hubby always says, he can’t stand Bush but if some foreign nation were to invade here, he’d sure as hell take up arms against them. 3. If caring about human life is the issue, there are plenty of “trouble spots” in the world crying for our attention. Unfortunately our record of saving people is full of blemishes because, while we’re great at blowing things up, we don’t know dick about establishing new governments for people. 4. Somehow I doubt that Saddam’s Shop o’ Goodies is the only purveyor of weaponry around; we’ve sure as heck given anyone with anti-American tendencies new reasons to search for suppliers. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/166 "2004-07-28T22:14:15Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Oh, goody! We can keep this shit up indefinitely and still be able to tell the world we aren’t quite as bad as Saddam. Not quite? Not by a long shot. And remember, a lower body count isn’t the only reason we’re there. It’s not even the main reason. But it’s a good sidebar benefit to the action we’re taking to protect ourselves. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You don’t get it and apparently don’t want to. Do you disagree that we’ve killed a lot of people we didn’t have to? Well, yes, **Mr. Moore** , I do. Despite the fact that your assertion was completely missing from anything my post was addressing (hence the comparison to Michael Moore as these are his tactics), I think we’ve gone out of our way, and sometimes put even our own soldier’s lives in jeopardy, to avoid killing innocent civilians. I’m not saying none have been killed, but we are making a far greater and more risky effort to avoid it than has any major military force in history. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/167 "2004-07-28T22:27:22Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Not quite? Not by a long shot. And remember, a lower body count isn’t the only reason we’re there. It’s not even the main reason. But it’s a good sidebar benefit to the action we’re taking to protect ourselves. But the “protect ourselves” rationale is, and always has been, nothing but a flimsy pretext based on no good evidence. I love the circularity of the Bush defenders’ position on this: 1. Bush defender: We went into Iraq because it was an imminent threat to us. 2. Critic: Well, we now know that, in fact, Iraq presented no imminent threat to the United States… 3. Bush defender: Well, maybe not, but Saddam Hussein was a real bad guy and we’re there to save his people and lower the body count. 4. Critic: Well, there’s no doubt SH is a bad guy, but we were happy to support him before. And we shouldn’t go around launching pre-emptive strikes in defiance of the United Nations just because we feel someone is a bad guy and a dictator. Where would it stop? 5. Bush defender: But we’re not just going in to lower the body count, we’re going in to protect ourselves. 6. Go back to 2., and repeat as necessary. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/168 "2004-07-28T22:49:00Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > But the “protect ourselves” rationale is, and always has been, nothing but a flimsy pretext based on no good evidence. > > I love the circularity of the Bush defenders’ position on this: > > 1. Bush defender: We went into Iraq because it was an imminent threat to us. > > 2. Critic: Well, we now know that, in fact, Iraq presented no imminent threat to the United States… Bush defender: Hindsight is 20/20. Critic: Bush lied!! ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/169 "2004-07-28T23:27:16Z")
> [@KidCharlemagne](#): > > Bush defender: Hindsight is 20/20. > > Critic: Bush lied!! Yeah, except there were plenty of critics saying _before_ the whole invasion that the WMD thing was a crock. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/170 "2004-07-28T23:56:44Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Yeah, except there were plenty of critics saying _before_ the whole invasion that the WMD thing was a crock. I’m not trying to be flip but I don’t remember this being the case. I know many people believed that WMDs weren’t the real reason Bush wanted war, but I thought the majority of credible sources believed that there were WMDs. Correct me if I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/171 "2004-07-29T00:06:40Z")
Hans Blick and Scott Ritter were two highly credible skeptics. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/172 "2004-07-29T00:07:12Z")
> [@KidCharlemagne](#): > > I’m not trying to be flip but I don’t remember this being the case. I know many people believed that WMDs weren’t the real reason Bush wanted war, but I thought the majority of credible sources believed that there were WMDs. Correct me if I’m wrong. I believe if you dig through the Great Debates archive, you’ll find a fair number of anti-war Dopers who were arguing along the lines of “the inspectors haven’t found anything, and odds are, any WMDs Saddam has (a) is probably an insignificant amount, and/or (b) probably turned to useless chemical goop when they expired” (chemical and biological weapons have a shelf-life of only a few years, at best). The only way Saddam could have posed an “imminent threat” the way the Bush Administration sold it was if he had an _active_ WMD-production capability, and none of the evidence at the time indicated he had any such thing. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/173 "2004-07-29T01:28:11Z")
Saw a chunk of it tonight, O’Really, with a straight face, talks about how important an event the “shootout” was, then promises to have guests on to _analyze and comment_ upon it and how important it was! This guys thinks he leaves footprints in the sidewalk! ---
**Author:** ![Somnambulist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Somnambulist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Somnambulist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/174 "2004-07-29T11:33:39Z")
> [@KidCharlemagne](#): > > I’m not trying to be flip but I don’t remember this being the case. I know many people believed that WMDs weren’t the real reason Bush wanted war, but I thought the majority of credible sources believed that there were WMDs. Correct me if I’m wrong. Actually it was a long way from being established as fact and there were a lot of commentators who felt that the evidence was far from compelling. Especially in the light of certain ‘crucial’ evidence (aluminium tubes, enriched uranium) being discredited and the inability of inspectors to locate WMDs despite US & UK assurances that their exact location was known. As for looking for ‘credible’ dissenters, surely Dr Hans Blix’s opinion should have been taken rather seriously? I find this unsettling reading: > [@](#): > > Dr Blix on Disarming Iraq > > Further embarrassment to Bush and Blair has arisen from the publication of a memoir by Dr Hans Blix, entitled Disarming Iraq: the search for weapons of mass destruction. Blix still cannot understand why his doubts and those of his professional teams of trained inspectors failed to make an impression on Blair and Bush. He accuses the British and US governments of “distorting” the reports of the weapons inspectors, by describing amounts of chemical and biological weapons still unaccounted for as “retained” weapons. He says that it was “probable that the governments were conscious that they were exaggerating the risks they saw in order to get the political support they would not otherwise have had”.6 > > Blix is scathing about the “faith-based” approach of Messrs Bush and Blair, which he says was tantamount to a “witch hunt”. His account is particularly damaging for Dick Cheney, the Vice-President who continued to insist that Iraq had “nuclear weapons” long after the evidence proved the contrary. In a meeting with IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei in October 2002, Cheney said that if the inspections did not give results the US was “ready to discredit inspections in favour of disarmament”.7 Indeed, this is what happened. The Bush administration actively sought to undermine the inspectors, accusing them of playing down the threat from Saddam’s WMD. Blix felt insulted by this treatment.8 > > In contrast, according to Blix, President Chirac had a healthy scepticism about intelligence. Although the French intelligence services were convinced WMD remained in Iraq, Chirac recognised that the intelligence services “sometimes intoxicate each other”. His thinking “seemed to be dominated by the conviction that Iraq did not pose a threat that justified armed intervention”.9 > > Blix reveals that when he returned to Iraq in 2002 his gut feeling was that Iraq was still engaged in prohibited activities and retained prohibited items, and that there was documentation to prove it. Hence he did not demur from Blair’s assertion that in November 2002, when resolution 1441 was adopted, “everyone thought he [Saddam] had them”. But by the end of that month, after Blix’s UNMOVIC team had inspected suspicious sites, acting on tip-offs from the intelligence agencies, and found no credible evidence of WMD, his doubts began. > > Blix praises the British Government for pursuing the inspection route and “never doubted that Blair was strongly advocating inspections all the way through; that the resistance to that must have come from the Americans and mainly from the Pentagon side”. > > Although he believes that the invasion of Iraq was not justified on the basis of the weapons threat, Blix considers that military action could have been justified on humanitarian grounds: “I would be in favour of that… a regime can systematically brutalise and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do”. [http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd77/77iraq.htm](http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd77/77iraq.htm) ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/175 "2004-07-29T12:19:00Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > I think you misunderstand, there, **Worldie**. If you will give my comment–a rhetorical question actually–a closer look, you’ll see that there is a question mark at the end. I was responding to **ElvisL1ves** ’ assertion that everyone who said Iraq had WMD was _ordered_ by Bush to say so. This is clearly ridiculous, and the intention of my post was to point this out. Ah gotcha, makes more sense now. One of the things that I find totally laughable is that couldn’t SH have premptively _attacked the US_? After all, we were about to wipe him off the planet, the very reason we invaded to prevent him from doing to us. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/176 "2004-07-29T13:49:34Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > I was responding to **ElvisL1ves** ’ assertion that everyone who said Iraq had WMD was _ordered_ by Bush to say so. This is clearly ridiculous. It certainly is, but not as ridiculous as the idea that I said anything that a sentient being could construe that way. Nobody “ordered” you to think or say anything. You’re drinking the Kool-Aid voluntarily. > [@](#): > > And remember, a lower body count isn’t the only reason we’re there. It’s not even the main reason. It’s the only one that’s survived contact with reality. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/177 "2004-07-29T15:14:47Z")
Aside from giving contracts to Halliburton. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/178 "2004-07-29T17:14:09Z")
And while we’re fucking around in Iraq, the _real_ war on terror is going to shit. “Report: Afghanistan could implode” [http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/29/uk.afghan.iraq/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/29/uk.afghan.iraq/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/179 "2004-07-29T17:23:24Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > It certainly is, but not as ridiculous as the idea that I said anything that a sentient being could construe that way. Okay, let’s look at the chronology here. **KidCharlemagne** said: “This wasn’t O’Reilly’s defense; it was his point. He was asking Moore, given that many independent analysts from different countries ( including those opposed to the war) agreed that Saddam had WMDs, why is Bush necessarily a liar?” (Note he said many different countries. And, as I’ve said here before, most of the countries in the Middle East and Europe, Russia, the U.N, the FBI, the CIA, and even Bill Clinton himself, believed Hussein either had or was developing WMD.) In response to **KidCharlemagne** ’s post, you said: “To a large degree, he was being told there were WMD’s because he was, in effect, ordering people to tell him that.” In light of the overwhelming international and internal opinion that Hussein did indeed have, or at the very least was working to develop WMD, just who was it then that you were referring to when you said that the people who told Bush there were WMD were doing so because he ordered them to do so? You didn’t exclude any of these countries and agencies when you made your declaration. And if you intended your remark to exclude them, what then would be your point, as their beliefs would only bolster the position of those you claim were only advising Iraqi WMD because Bush ordered them to? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137/180 "2004-07-29T17:37:45Z")
\*\*SA \*\* said I ordered _him_ to think something. He’s nuts. > [@](#): > > In light of the overwhelming international and internal opinion that Hussein did indeed have, or at the very least was working to develop WMD, “Overwhelming opinion”? “Everybody thought so”? Standard fare from the loyalist side. But that is not the case. There was a lot of crap that, if put together and looked at just so under the right light, suggested that as a possibility, yes. But “everybody” \*else \* was aware of the shakiness and ambiguity of the case even then, and of the existence of other explanations that were at least equally well-supported. “Everybody else” didn’t go get people fucking killed over it, either. Tell me, when Powell put together the strongest of this “evidence” at the UN, didn’t you wonder that that was all there was? And that, if you’ll recall honestly, is why the UN sent the inspectors back in - _to find out the facts_. The team was just two weeks from reporting back that the WMD story didn’t pan out when Bush ordered the invasion _anyway_, something he could have done months before. Why? What explanation do you offer for that other than the obvious, damning one? Tell me, what did you think of Cheney and Rumsfeld setting up the Office of Special Projects to give them the “intelligence” answers they wanted when the CIA tried to be truthful and objective? Are you ignorant of that little episode? If not, doesn’t that fall under “ordering people to tell you what you want to hear”? Tell me this, too - how does it feel to have been fooled so badly? Do you realize it even now? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-lordy-this-should-be-good-moore-visits-oreilly-tonight/257137.md?page=10)