I’m sorry, but Bush did not say “I’m going to attack Saddam to get revenge”, he mentioned the assassination attempt as an example of evidence that Saddam is a dangerous threat. Do you fail to see the difference?
Jeff
Wow, I’d say that’s one of the most naive things I’ve read in a while. Of course he might be shallow and selfish enough. He’s human, and moreso, he’s a politician, for Christ’s sake. The last president I’d believe was above this type of thing was maybe Carter, and that’s a maybe.
**No, he’s finding other ways to try to justify it. They obviously aren’t very convincing to a lot of people, this thread being evidence of that.
**I’m not theorizing it’s his only reason to go to war, he’s finding enough enough excuses to convince those in the loop that he at least has other excuses for it. And I’m not so convinced that the excuses he coming up with so far aren’t fake. Headline this morning: “Bush Claim ‘Solid’ Evidence on Iraq” but refuses to say what that evidence is. Yeah, that’s real convincing.
No less plausible that a president lying about the Gulf Of Tonkin, IMO.
That’s what I’m saying: it’s not an official legitimate stated reason, but that might be W Bush’s driving private emotional force for war. I know I’d be pretty pissed at someone who tried to kill my dad.
I think it should be obvious that when you claim someone is lying you have to show he knows he is lying. Just showing that he has changed his mind or even made an error is not enough. Otherwise you would call every intelligence analyst who makes a incorrect assessment (and creates a “misleading impression”) a liar.
If you had looked more closely at your dictionary you would have discovered this for yourself. Here also from the M-W is the definition of “false”
2a) intentionally untrue. (as in false testimony".)
Obviously this is the relevant definition when considering the statements of Ritter and whether he lying.
So you have to show that Ritter knew he was telling a lie in either 1997 or today
You haven’t done that; all you have done is to shown Ritter has changed his mind and claimed that the only possible explanation is that he is lying.
“Mr. Ritter has never explained what changed between 1998 and today”
He has. He has said that the technical,quantitative “filter” relevant as an inspector is not the same “filter” relevant to public decision about going to war. Just because you don’t find this reason convincing doesn’t mean that he isn’t sincere in believing it.
I will note once again that despite your claims that Mr Ritter has lost all credibility he is taken seriously enough to be interviewed by magazines like Time.
“I’m sorry, but Bush did not say “I’m going to attack Saddam to get revenge”, he mentioned the assassination attempt as an example of evidence that Saddam is a dangerous threat”
No of course not. But the fact that he did mention it when he didn’t have to does indicate the possibility that it’s on his mind as part of the reason to go to war. Comparing this possibility to moon-landing conspiracies is foolish.
George Bush. He’s back. And this time it’s personal.
I should add that “misleading” also invovles an element of deliberate deceit. Here is the MW: “to lead in a wrong direction or into a mistaken action or belief often by deliberate deceit”.
Of course all this dictionar- quoting ought to be unnecessary; it should be blindingly obvious that people who merely change their mind or make mistakes aren’t liars regardless of what the dictionary says.
One attempted murder, a decade ago, which was avenged at the time, on a dubious suspect is not a causus belli.
I should also clarify the bit about not mentioning it when he didn’t have to. I suppose you could argue that the assasination attempt was part of the general argument against Saddam but it was the personal way in which Bush mentioned it that was significant. He could have mentioned it without personalizing it but didn’t.
Only insofar as it shows that he and his regime is a threat to US citizens (as well as everyone in the Middle East).
A dictator who stoops to attempts at murder is a dangerous person to those he attacks. QED.
Or in other words, Bush was not lying when he said that Iraq threatened the US.
No, ElJeffe, I am not a former Marine. I’m not black either, but I would equally object to someone characterizing them as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals as well.
Regards,
Shodan
Revtim:
Wow. I consider myself a cynic, but even I don’t believe that any president since Carter - or really, any president of the US, ever - would send thousands of people to kill other thousands of people out of a childish sense of revenge.
Shodan:
Ah. For some reason, I thought I’d remembered seeing other posts of yours that seemed to allude to military experience, but then again, it’s been a long week, and I’m not firing on all cylinders. Please ignore me. 
Jeff
Shodan, did you feel that the Tomahawk response in 1993 wasn’t adequate, and that the US should have gone to war then to topple Saddam’s regime?
ElJeffe, I honestly hope you are right, but it just seems a little much to trust W on this.
Suppose a person tries to kill your father. Do you think you would be impartial enough to judge this person on other crimes fairly? Do you think you should be on a jury where this person is the defendant of another crime? Would you be trusted even as a witness?
We should not and perhaps can not blindly trust what W Bush says about Hussein.
Revtim:
Me, personally, I think I could probably be impartial in such a situation. I’ve been wronged by others before, and made rational decisions when their fates rested in my hands. Never anything as severe as a hit on a loved one, but I still think I know myself well enough to predict how I would behave. Can everybody be impartial? No, but in situation as grave as whether or not to declare war, I think most people could probably put such petty concerns behind them. It’s not as if Saddam actually killed Bush 41, he just tried to, and didn’t come very close.
And I agree that we should not trust GWB blindly - and I don’t.
Jeff
Weak, Shodan. Even beneath your usual standard. My reference was to something about Mr. Ritter that I find off-putting. Perhaps something about his bearing, like an ex-military person who simply can’t shake it off. A “lifer”, in the jargon. Out of that, you are pleased to imply that I’m calling all Marines “knuckle dragging Neanderthals”. One feels as if savaged by a chocolate eclair.
But enough trivialilties. To the matter at hand. Seymour H.‘s article, referenced above, does indeed present enough evidence to put the whole matter of the "murder attempt’ into shadow. Indeed, I am surprised some of the Usual Suspects haven’t pounced on the opportunity to imply a “Wag the Dog” aspect of this on Clinton. As the article clarifies, there is more than enough to suggest that Clinton’s response was, at best, poorly considered. Be that as it may, Our Leader’s resurrection of that murky episode as justification for his actions is simply another in a series of innuendoes presented as irrefutable facts. It pales in comparison to at least one bald faced lie (the Report That Didn’t Exist), and takes a fairly obscure position in a whole posse of half baked half truths.
If the threat of Goddam Saddam is so urgent, so utterly irrefutable and so desperately immediate that war is the only response worth consideration, no such shadows would exist. There would be no need for lame innuendos and hearsay evidence. Facts that demand war, and nothing less than war, must be naked truths, stark, clear, and undeniable, such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A man who would lead us to war must be willing to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth or God help us all. The Man Who Fell Up is by no stretch of the imagination such a leader, he is operating under the delusion that a Great Crisis will somehow transform a mediocrity into a Leader of Men. This is romantic nonsense, total Bushwa. And a man so deluded, so smitten with himself, is far more a threat to the Republic than Saddam bin Laden could ever be.
And finally, Shodan, let me point out, once again, that if you find my personality distasteful and my opinions disagreeable, you are under no compunction to read them, much less respond. My name is right there at the top, you need only alert yourself to the impending threat of probity, pick up your little basket, and skip along, skip along.
Ah, but elucidator, there will always be those for whom no justification is justification enough. Even in the War Following the War To End All Wars, there were those perpetual peaceniks who felt that to enter the war was foolhardy at best, an obscenity at worst. And this is World War II, mind you. Hitler is massacring Jews by the metric boatload; the entirety of Europe is already swathed in bloodshed; our own nation was attacked by the enemy, and still there are those who balk at the idea of raising a gun at the enemy. So your idea that any truly just war must obviously be as such to everyone is, to put it nicely, naive.
So, given that a unaninimous desire for war among the noble American populace is a pipedream, even in such obvious war-worthy endeavors as existed in WWII, what kind of majority should we require before we set our nation’s sights on warfare as an option? Personally, I think “63%” has a nice ring to it. Of course, I’m betting that many here would prefer a majority of “However Many Currently Favor War + X, where X is some arbitrary number that insures such a majority will never be reached.”
Jeff
Well, thats as may be, I suppose. But I’m not requiring that Ghandi reach for a hand grenade, or hordes of Amish line up at the recruiting station. And your last remark has the premptive ring about it, “some people” simply will not see the urgency Our Leader has so eloquently evoked. They might even demand some actual action on Saddams part, rather than the sincere asssurances of Miss Cleo that, indeed, he is cooking up nefarious plots even as we speak!
As to the popular will, why is it, do you imagine, that a protest of the war would bring out 100,000 of our fellow citizens? Febrile pacifism? A lack of firm moral character, weak patriotism? Or could it be that they think our current course of intended is illegal, immoral, and…how shall I put this?..just plain stupid?
As to WWII, that reasoning falls apart like wet toilet paper at the touch. The vote in the Senate was unanimous, save for one committed pacifist. So, OK, scooter, I’ll go for that: a 99 to 1 vote in the Senate will do it for me.
Good luck.
More than 100 violations of the peace resolution is, though.
You ain’t got enough to do, Daoloth. One hundred cites please.
I was in error. It has been violated 130 times in the year 2002. Obviously, I don’t require 130 cites. You don’t need 600,000 cites to illustrate that 600,000 people perished in the American civil war, for instance.
Therefore, a single and credible site will do:
“Central Command said that the Iraqis have fired on coalition aircraft more than 130 times so far this year.”
Each firing is a violation of UN Resolution 1441. I really don’t grasp what’s so hard to comprehend about this. 