Svin:
Thanks man, you seem to be the only one interested in hashing this out sans rhetoric, and I’ve always known you to be reasonable. If you want to read the report in detail (there’s several transcripts of kaye’s testimony on line,) I’ll probably start a thread on it in GD tomorrow.
I suspect that Kay was pressured by the WH to inject some phony optimism into the report, to inflate imagined desires for WMDs into “programs” and to characterize the failure to find the slightest trace of actual stocks as “inconclusive.”
Scylla seems to be conceding that there was never any immence and that in itself is enough to make the invasion illegal. It’s also a de facto concession that Bush was lying when he said he knew for a fact that Iraq posed an imminent threat via WMDs.
**
I am not aware that that would make the war illegal. Could you cite the law broken?
No. It’s not, though that is one of several possibilities. I’d prefer if you let me draw my own conclusions rather than assuming them for me.
You serious? Are you really going to try and pretend there is something here to debate?
“Resolved: the Kay Report is the sorriest sack of shit since the Tonkin Bay Resolution” Something like that?
Does the name "Custer"mean anything to you?
Legality? Sure. No sweat.
The Constitution clealy states that treaties that the US signs and the Senate ratifies are the law of the land. No ifs, ands, or buts.
Back when we really were the last best hope of mankind, we almost singlehandedly created the UN. To my mind, along with the Marshall Plan, one of our finest moments.
To that end we signed the treaty that created it. We swore to abstain from aggressive war for any reason not directly related to our self-defense. No provision was made for paranoid fantasies.
This fact is clearly demonstrated by GeeDubyas abortive attempt to get a second resolution specificly endorsing war. You remember that one, don’t you? How GeeDubya thrust his tremulous little chin out and swore he would take the vote no matter what. How he was going to make everybody “show thier cards”?
Illegal. Immoral. Ill advised. And just plain sick. And done in my name. And yours.
Ready for another whopper? Another scoop of wholesale horsehit from the people who brought honor and integrity back to the White House?
"The Bush administration’s optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq’s oil wealth, not American taxpayers, would cover most of the cost of rebuilding Iraq were at odds with a bleaker assessment of a government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq’s oil industry, according to public records and government officials.
The task force, which was based at the Pentagon as part of the planning for the war, produced a book-length report that described the Iraqi oil industry as so badly damaged by a decade of trade embargoes that its production capacity had fallen by more than 25 percent, panel members have said.
Despite those findings, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told Congress during the war that “we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”
Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said in April, on the day Baghdad fell, that Iraq’s oil production could hit 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year, even though the task force had determined that Iraq was generating less than 2.4 million barrels a day before the war."
Lies. Regiments of lies, marching in lock step, vast armies of lies, as far as the eye can see.
Nixon was an amatuer.
To simplify what 'lucy said, it was a violation of the UN Charter which specifies self-defense and “imminent threat” as the only legal justifications for an attack on the sovereignty of another country (that’s where that “imminent threat” phrase comes from and that’s why guys like me and 'lucy keep harping on it). The charter specifically excludes any justification based on the internal political situation of the country (IOW, “Saddam is a bad guy” isn’t good enough).
What are the other possibilities? Let’s break this down logically:
1.) Bush said he knew that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US via WMDs. He didn’t say he thought so or that it was probably so. He said he knew it for a fact.
2.) It was obviously not a fact that Iraq posed such a threat.
3.) It is not possible for Bush to have known something for a fact that was not, in fact, a fact.
4.) His statement that he knew cannot logically be true.
5.) Therefore he was lying. He made a false statement. He knew he didn’t know about WMDs. He was hoping. He thought there was a pretty good chance. He may have sincerely believed it but he didn’t fucking know it so he lied.
Tell me how it’s possible for Bush’s statement to have been true. If it wasn’t true, it was a lie by definition wasn’t it. Show me how I’m wrong.
simple Dio. Some one he trusted could have lied to him.
It’s not uncommon for some one to claim to know something w/o direct witnessing of the event. I ‘know’ that the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln. Have I seen the documentation of that fact? no. But I’ve seen it reported in a variety of sources that I trust.
You’re falling victim (pardon the use of the word, please) to the SDMB tendancy to use the word “liar” when the more accurate word would be something like “Wrong”.
BUsh was clearly wrong when he made those claims. We can know that now. At the time, he may have totally believed it to be true, thought it was likely true, thought it was probably true, exaggerated because he thought it was the gonna be true, etc.
But to claim some one is a liar for saying “I know” vs. “I believe (based on the fact that people I trust have told me this is true)” is not, I think, correct.
Except we also know that he was warned by the CIA that at least some of the information had not been confirmed (yellowcake) and that the WH chose to propagate it anyway. We also know that Bush has a past history of lying about things directly related to Iraq (such as fabricating fictional reports about nukes). Colin Powell, himself was quoted as calling bullshit on the script they gave him to present to the UN. I find it very difficult to believe that the CIA would assure the WH of something like the Iraq allegations without being damned sure of its info. What has actually been reported suggests just the opposite, that they were very reticent to say that they knew Iraq had WMDs but the WH chose to spew it out anyway.
If Bush was simply misinformed then he is an incompetent idiot for not making sure. The WH has yet to produce any evidence that before the invasion they had received anything like an unqualified assurance from the intelligence community that Iraq definitely had WMDs.
Now it may be that Scylla is simply not ready to concede a deliberate lie and I will not again try to make assumptions about his interpretation of the facts but given this administrations history with the truth and their penchant for self-serving propaganda I’m going to assume it was a lie.
But even all of what you’ve said can still be waved away with "he really believed person A’s assesment and didn’t believe the CIA"s report 'cause the other person was so certain etc.
“Plausable deniability”.
(and, frankly, I can also believe the ‘incompetent beyond belief’ stance as well).
Never underestimate the power of self delusion (IOW, by believing one set while discounting the others, he could assure himself that he was taking the right stance etc, when happy coincidence it was also in his own personal ‘thing I want to do the most’ - hell that’s pretty much what he’s doing now - latching onto that one pathetic vial of crap in the one guys’ frig “See, I was right!!!” )
I guess we can just agree that the WMD claim was bullshit and leave it at that. I think you have a point about GWB’s capability for self-delusion.
Elmer Fudd thinks he’s Churchill. Capacity for self-delusion is galactic.
Not entirely related story on self-delusion (remembered from Pragmatics of Human Communication, details of the below may vary from the book):
Crazy guy who thinks he’s God sits in one corner of the room. Shrink walks in and sits in chair on the other side of the room. After a few minutes of silence, the shrink gets up, walks over to the crazy guy, and drops to his knees, offering up his keys to the room to the man, and saying “Please accept this offering from me in your honor. I know that you don’t really need the keys, as you can just walk through walls, but I’d like you to have them.”, and he leaves the keys with the nutcase, and walks back to his chair and sits.
Nutcase looks at the keys, then looks at the shrink. Looks at the keys, looks at the shrink. Finally, he gets up, pulling his own chair after him, sits as close to the shrink as he can, stares him straight in the eye and says, “Doc, one of us is crazy.”
Sorry, had to share. Continue, please.
Scylla:
I’ve had a chance to read the report since I posted last, and will participate in your thread to the extent my time constraints allow.
Diogenes:
You are incorrect.
Nowhere in the Charter are states granted the right to defend themselves in the face of an “imminent threat.” In fact, technically, they are specifically forbidden from doing so. They are authorized to use force only in self-defense, after they have been attacked, and then only until such time as the UN Security Council can intervene with international force. Check the text of Articles 2 and 51 for clarification (Article 51 can be found in Chapter VII):
The phrase “imminent threat” appears in the text of the Bush administration’s recently released “National Security Strategy.” It found it’s way there from a much earlier draft written by Wolfowitz that was originally rejected by the Clinton administration.
Providing that we agree that the UN Charter, signed by the US, is a treaty agreement, the Constitution clearly states that its provisions are to be considered “the supreme law of the land,” equal in force to the Constitution itself. See Article VI:
Thus, as far as I can make out, this NSS document outlines a policy that is, technically speaking, unconstitutional. If the above interpretation is correct, it means that the invasion of Iraq was unconstitutional as well – since it was a violation of the UN Charter, of which the US is a signatory.
Finally, this, posted by elucidator:
Great.
So what am I, then? Chopped liver?
Thanks for nuthin’.
Hey, I gave myself third billing!
Looking forward to your steel cage death match with whatshisface.
By the way, elucidator – I know this is a bit off topic, but you should really check out the latest at Salon. An article by John Dean and an interview with Ellsberg on the Plame scandal. All velly, velly inktellestink, in particular the Ellsberg piece.
In addition the Washington Post has a piece on Kay’s report, including the following quote :
**From where I’m sitting, it looks like things are getting pretty hot up at the White House right now. Apparently, many on the Hill have their long knives out for Rove; and without him, Bush is lost.
Well, there! That proves conclusively that Saddam already had as much uranium as he needed! What more proof do you need!
How about this “proof” that december was actually one of Bush’s pseudonyms:
Great catch, Squink! A poem like that to kick off the National Book Festival.
Oh, the ironing is delicious.
You sure that wasn’t Maya Angelou?
