The giant Scylla Thanksgiving crow eating thread.

[elucidator]

Well said. Pip, pip. I can only hope that, should I ever be wrong, I can own up to it with the same grace and dignity.

[PatriotX]

*Originally posted by SimonX *
I am a registered Republican.

*Originally posted by elucidator *
**Don’t give up hope. We’re pulling for you… **

Bless your heart. I’ll take this to’ve been meant in a nice way.

[minty_green]

Umm, yes, well. As I recall, the Thanksgving concession was not merely in regards to any personal error on the part of our esteemed colleague. It was to have rather more to do with a concession that the statements and/or conduct of certain public officials were “deliberately fraudulent,” and that the picture “[was] being deliberately obfuscated.” That, of course, is precisely the issue that a certain someone avoided in his mea culpa of a couple months back.

I don’t care if Scylla though there were WMD’s in Iraq. Hell, I thought there were some WMD’s in Iraq. What I want to hear is whether is willing to concede that the highest levels of this nation’s leaders perpetrated a deliberate fraud on the American public in order to justify war with Iraq.

But that’s just me. I’ll let Scylla speak his opinion of Mr. Bush and his administration on or about this Thursday.

[Scylla]

Minty:

What I want to hear is whether is willing to concede that the highest levels of this nation’s leaders perpetrated a deliberate fraud on the American public in order to justify war with Iraq.

I don’t know that it was deliberate, wishful thinking, ignorance, or a combination. I know that it was irresponsible.

I chose my words carefully in that earlier thread when I said:

"On the question of WMDs in Iraq, the President and administration have failed to act responsibly and prudently with the assertions presented to the American public and world community. "

I was wrong, y’all were right, the Prez did us dirt.

[elucidator]

Takes all the pleasure out of a good gloat. What a kill-joy.

A little teeth-gnashing, a dash of bitterness. Is that so much to ask?

[Governor_Quinn]

He’s been a killjoy to me, as it now becomes apparent that I’ll never get that stuffing…

[minty_green]

You’re about 50% of the way there, Scylla. But as I’m sure you’re aware, those were not your only words on your matter. The exchange, after all, went exactly like this:

minty: And fuck the actual WMD’s, isn’t it about time for the SOB’s to show us where all those massive weapons programs labs are? You know, the ones that were allegedly designed to produce large quantities of Bad Shit? Those trailers ain’t gonna cut it.

Scylla: Yup. He’s got till Thanksgiving as far as I’m concerned.

minty: And then what will you do?

Scylla: It will depend on what happens between now and then. I imagine the picture will be clearer as to the WMDs, and I will be able to judge it.

If the picture is not clearer, I will assume it is being deliberately obfuscated, and assume the worst.

But in light of the ongoing tribulations still existing in Iraq, the nationbuilding and turmoil, I think until Thanksgiving is a reasonable time to give Bush to prove that his charges were well-founded.

If he cannot, then I will assume they were not and were deliberately fraudulent.

Emphasis added.

Crow or weasel. Your call.

[Measure_for_Measure]

Only a total moron could be fooled by the transparent falsehoods continuously put out by this adminstration. As I wrote on Jan 30, 2003:

Hm. The point is that Saddam is clearly not making any attempt to disarm, and is pursuing nuclear weaponry, along with various other sundry weapons of mass destruction. My understanding is that he basically has all components necessary for an A-bomb, except for the enriched Uranium.
So, to put it another way. (1) Weapons of mass destruction are threatening.
(2) Saddam has shown no reluctance to use WMDs over the past 30 years, unlike every other nation on earth, including Libya and the US.
So, (3) Saddam is threatening.

:smack: :smack: :smack:
Flowbark will be eating a double portion of crow this Thanksgiving.

[elucidator]

Asked and answered, Counselor. The finger-tapping keyboard lady will read from the record…

“…the Prez did us dirt.”

Just so.

[minty_green]

Is the dirt deliberate or negligent? That’s all I want to hear.

Depending upon the answer, of course. I reserve the right to follow up.

[Measure_for_Measure]

It turns out Saddam had lots of A-Bomb components, but was forced to dismantle them because of sanctions. But did Flowbark advocate continued sanctions?

No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Flowbark was afraid of the, “Sanctions Trap”. Flowbark figured that the nefarious French and Germans had weakened sanctions to the point that Saddam was just a few steps away from completing his WMD arsenal.

[Measure_for_Measure]

Hey, here’s a gem:

Originally posted by Flowbark on 1/31/2003

Ok, so the issue turns on whether Saddam is pursuing WMDs. If it can be shown that he is not, I would oppose an invasion. [Furthermore, if containment could be re-assembled - that is, if we could persuade the Turks, Syrians, Iranians and Jordanians to stop trading oil with Saddam outside of the UN food for oil program AND we could persuade the French and Russians to stop circumventing UN resolutions regarding trade restrictions, then I would also oppose an invasion]

But let’s look at the evidence that Saddam has not forsworn WMDs.

1. Saddam refuses to have Iraqi weapons scientists meet with UN officials without being accompanied by his secret police. Why?

2. In May 1992, Iraq was shown to have lied about having a biological weapons program, and basically made a (partial) confession. (Pollack, p. 63)

3. In 1995, following the defection of Hussein Kamel, the UN was shown to 650,000 pages of documents, revealing Saddam’s ongoing bioweapons program.

4. In 1997-98, Saddam blocked a surprise inspection of UNSCOM, harassed that organization’s personnel (eg tried to seize controls of a helicopter in flight, put a rocket-propelled grenade through UNSCOM HQ in Baghdad) and generally hindered their work.

5. Though Iraq has categorically denied ever putting VX nerve agent in its missiles, UNSCOM found traces of the agent in missile fragments that the Iraqis had cleaned and then unilaterally destroyed. This was in 1998.

Following the departure of UN weapons inspectors, I find it difficult to conceive of a scenario whereby Saddam would suddenly cease his WMD programs without presenting evidence of it.

Garcon? Get me another fowl order!

[minty_green]

That’s nice, but I don’t care what flowbark thought, just as I don’t care what Scylla thought.

I wanna know what Scylla thinks: Is George D. Bush a deliberately lying sonofabitch–like Scylla told us he would have to be if Thanksgiving arrived without any WMD’s–or merely (oops!) mistaken.

Surely, I’m not the only person who recognizes a difference between a lying sonofabitch and guy who, acting in good faith, drew an incorrect conclusion.

[elucidator]

MG Lord Acton, wasn’t it? “Never attribute to malice that which can just as easily be explained by stupidity.”

Flowbark’s entry has kind of muddied things, when it comes to the SDMB Award for Self-Abasement for Being Totally, Absolutely, Bugger-Me Wrong. Scylla’s got the brevity and dignity thing, true, but Flowbark is more demonstrative, more verve and feeling, more of that “I don’t remember last night and this woman looks a lot like Ann Coulter” revulsion. Gonna be a tough call.

By the way, where’s Sam?

[Scylla]

Minty:

It was fraudulent. It was obfuscated. It was deliberately so. The President is responsible.
(upon preview)

Is the dirt deliberate or negligent? That’s all I want to hear.

Some of both is my opinion.

Depending upon the answer, of course. I reserve the right to follow up.

[Mtgman]

So I guess the real question is, does anyone who bought into the lies have plans to actually do anything about it? There’s an election coming up after all. I’d personally think more than twice before voting for someone I believed deliberately lied to the American people in order to foment war.

Enjoy,
Steven

[elucidator]

Well, yeah, except that the Democrats hate God and want to force Eagle Scouts into gay marriages…

[milroyj]

I’ll be voting for the President, is that at all helpful?

[Apos]

If it was fraudulent, then my question is: why the war at all?
I don’t buy the oil conspiracy. I don’t buy the “just for political cred” idea (in fact, he took a huge political risk).

But the problem is, I can’t buy the humanitarian or democratization idea that he’s currently pushing either. If that had been the original intention, then there would have been mechanisms and plans already in place to seriously deal with these issues. If there were, its now clear that they were fairly incompetant. We clearly do not have enough troops on the ground to provide a real occupation force: even enough to guard critical sites (hence things like the the theft of the cobalt). We didn’t really make a very good attempt to appeal to the Iraqi people on a propaganda level. We didn’t bring enough translators. All of this would have seemed obvious if the original intention was to fix the country. But everything I hear from my insides in neo-con and other circles within the conservative movement is that no one really seriously believes that a functioning democracy in Iraq is acheivable within the next few YEARS.

But what does that leave? I’m not against the President here. I agree that Iraqis are better off, and I’ve been for ousting Sadam via military means for almost a decade and half now, even if I think the US populace was tricked into it in this particular instance. But what was he thinking? What the heck WAS the motive here?

And what I’m left with is the thought that maybe he DIDN’T knowingly dupe anyone: that he really IS surprised not to find tons of WMD everywhere.

[London_Calling]

Hey milroyj, you ever want to buy a bridge or sumin’, you let me know. I can do some great deals for ya. Special rates for all my special message board friends.

Also got this investment idea in the South Seas that’s really going to take off . . . you really wouldn’t want to miss out on that, everyone’s talking about it.