To that last, before you get answers, are you clear about what the resolution approved? Hell, if I’d been a Senator, I’d have voted for it myself, and I still would. In hindsight, I’d have put forth a lot more effort to make sure Bush followed it *instead * of starting a war, though.
Well, technically-speaking, I don’t think that #5 (the vote on the resolution) directly addresses who thought Saddam had WMD programs. I would say it more addresses who thought he might have such programs and that it was important enough to try to determine the extent to which this was true by getting inspectors in there. (And, yes, in some cases, I think it reflected some Democrats who probably didn’t think it was so vitally important to get inspectors in there but still voted that way for political cover…not wanting to look “soft” at a time still pretty shortly after 9/11. There is no doubt that politically the resolution was a brilliant move by the Administration that put many Democrats in a no-win position.)
I agree to a point. But, I also think that some Democrat Senators like Kerry, Schumer, and Clinton are arguing that they felt it was the right decision to vote for the resolution to get the inspectors in there, etc. but it was the wrong decision for Bush to rush to war, particularly after the inspections were exposing the fact that what the U.S. intelligence thought we knew was complete and utter crap. (Clinton has also explained how she thought it is generally right in principle to give the President this sort of freedom of action when he believes that he requires it.)
I think this is a logically-defensible position even if my own opinion is that they should have never voted for the resolution in the first place (at least in part because it should have been clear to anyone by October 2002 that this Administration was taking lies and deception to new heights and that there was no evidence that Bush’s stated motivations were his real ones and that he would really try to avoid going to war).
John, the point is that the next line that people like the OP invariably come up with (and that the OP in fact did in his first post) is “The adminstration may have been mistaken, but I don’t believe they lied or purposively misled.” And, our point is that this is not a correct conclusion for the wide variety of reasons that we have discussed both in this thread and in the other thread that I linked to.
So, in answer to your question, I would say it is basically immaterial to the rest of what the OP said in his post.
You want a cite that Clinton said that Saddam had WMD?
I’ve done that in other threads. Here is it again for you to disregard. Here’s where we trigger a whole slew of “that doesn’t count! BUSHLIEDBUSHLIEDBUSHLIEDBUSHLIED” in increasingly shrill voices.
And I have never seen a convinced Bush-hater change his mind about anything. Go figure.
Nope, it is entirely true, especially in your case. And you are by no means alone on the SDMB.
Look, you need to understand something. You know all that crap y’all pitch about lockstep, mindless drones supporting the President, and “drink the Kool-aid”, and getting your thinking entirely from blogs? That’s you folks, except from the other side of the aisle. A good big chunk of you people are the very definition of knee-jerk liberal.
Obviously ElvisL1ves is one of the worst examples, but it is a darn close race for second place.
It’s a faith issue, like creationism. And like creationists, you get a whole bunch of selective perception and double standards, and always in the direction of confirming what you assumed in the first place.
It’s just that I’ve learned over the years when to tell which subjects trigger the group think. That’s when all the hard-boiled skeptics start taking cites from the National fucking Enquirer as gospel, and seriously discussing how Bush is planning to cancel the elections and rule as a dictator, and invading Canada and assassinating people who leak stuff, and all that kind of thing. I mean, come on.
Some of the discussion hereabouts is informed and enlightening. The rest - isn’t. And the volume of the argument has no effect on the credibility of the poster.
It’s a shame so many of you are lockstep liberals, but you are. That’s just how it is. It ain’t under my control, so it ain’t my fault. You don’t like it?
Not my problem. I paid my $7.98, and I get some of my money’s worth by giggiling condescendingly at the some of the bullshit laid on so lavishly by a good number of the Usual Suspects. Deal with it.
Regards,
Shodan
No, here’s where we trigger more rolled eyes. I didn’t ask for a cite that Clinton said that Saddam had WMD, and you know that. I asked for a cite that he lied. I put forth my own standards above: he had to tell a falsehood in an intent to deceive the audience. Linking to a speech does not prove that he lied.
If you want to offer proof, you need to show:
- A falsehood; and
- An intent to deceive the audience.
If you believe the speech you linked to contains both a falsehood and an intent to deceive, offer specifics: the specific falsehood, and the evidence of an intent to deceive.
I’ve got no particular interest in defending Clinton against charges of lying: I think he probably lied about his reasons for bombing the factory in Sudan, although I don’t know enough about the case to argue that persuasively. But if you want to claim he lied, you need to make the case, not throw out a single link and then accuse everyone else of talking like a girl.
Daniel
Nope. From the resolution (my emphasis):
If I may add, any idiot can giggle condescendingly, and often the loudest gigglers are the biggest idiots. One of the most condescending critters I know is my pet cat, and she’s dumb as a box of rocks. Don’t think your condescension is remotely relevant to the force of your argument.
Daniel
It is worth noting that nearly all if not all the ways in which Clinton listed in that speech that Saddam was not complying with the inspection process, he was basically complying in the new inspection regime in the months leading up to the war.
On the other hand, given what we now know regarding the truth of Saddam’s claims that the inspectors were being used to spy on him back in 1998, I do not see how Clinton’s actions were defensible.
So, yes, I condemn Clinton for taking those actions. However, the scale of those actions did not result in the massive loss of Iraqi lives, the large casualties for American soldiers, the broad inflaming of anti-American sentiment, and the huge quagmire that we currently find ourselve in as a result of Bush’s war. Therefore, while I think this action was unjustified and condemnable, it is simply not on the same scale as what Bush has done.
I am quite impressed, Shodan, at your ability to discern both the vileness of Clinton’s intentions and the pure nobility of Bush’s actions (despite the mounds of evidence that we have presented to the contrary…I guess you fall into the category who just think Bush must have just been grossly incompetent in not doing much of anything to prevent any WMD that might have existed from falling into the hands of terrorists).
But, of course, we are all to understand that this is not due to any partisanship on dear Shodan’s part. It is merely his superior mind-reading skills at work.
John: I hope you are aware that in deciding to vote for a particular piece of legislation, one sometimes has to choose to vote for it in spite of the fact that one doesn’t completely agree with every word of it…particularly if you agree that what it is trying to accomplish (getting the inspectors into Iraq by having a credible threat of the use of force) is a reasonable goal.
Again, I don’t agree with the vote in favor of that resolution, but I could understand how someone who truly felt it important to get inspectors in there would vote for it even if they didn’t feel they knew that Iraq was in breach as strongly as the wording says…because they suspected this might be (or was even likely to be) true and thought it important that the inspections proceed so that we could find out with more assuredness if this were true or not.
Oh, I know what you were asking for. You wanted another opportunity to say, in essence, “that doesn’t count”.
The problem being, as ever, if you were as committed a rightie as you are a leftie, you could do the same for anything Bush ever said. Because he and Clinton said the same things. And, since Clinton did not really care about Iraqi WMD, he did nothing that would have pushed Saddam to dispose of his WMD, or show that he had done so already. Like an invasion. So in that sense, Clinton got away with it.
I don’t know, maybe you (LHoD) are committed enough a pacifist that you would condemn the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq just as much if they had happened under President Clinton (or Gore) as if they happened under Bush. Or that you would have condemned Bush just as harshly if he had merely tossed a few missiles at Saddam and then changed the subject, as happened for Clinton. But the rest of the Usual Suspects? Not hardly. And they have the advantage of being able to say that “President Gore would have done everything perfectly, and all the land would be sweetness and light and puppies playing under a blue sky”. An unprovable assertion, obviously, just as is my assertion that they would have fallen into lockstep unison behind a President Gore, even if everything else had happened exactly the same.
Shodan giggles condesendingly
Your cat giggles? Keep him off the SDMB.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes, I’m aware of that. I hope you are also aware that Senators routinely vote “no” on resolutions that don’t fully oppose, knowing that it’s going to pass anyway but not wanting to be on record as supporting the exact wording. Sometimes they say things like 'I voted for the resolution before I voted against it" to clarifty that position. Lacking any clarification from any particular Senator, I think it is safe to assume they agreed with that part of the resolution. If you have statement from any Senators saying they didn’t agree with that part, then I’d be happy to take those Senators off the list.
Goddam, but you’re a crappy mindreader. At least, given your lack of psychic powers, you could read what I wrote instead of trying, and failing, to read my mind. I’m not asking for a chance to say, “That doesn’t count.” I’m asking for you to put forth an argument, instead of limply throwing forth a generic cite, and then accusing everyone of shrill whining when they don’t immediately admit the force of your argument.
Want to make an argument? Make one. If all you want to do is accuse everyone of the same level of partisanship that you enjoy, perhaps the Pit is the appropriate place to do so.
Daniel
I hope you get your straw at a discount.
It seems to me that Clinton’s actions toward Iraq and Bush’s are on massively different scales. Certainly Clinton, like most of us, thought Saddam had these weapons. And Clinton was wont to toss missiles here and there, he wasn’t a reincarnation of McGovern. He had Saddam effectively corralled and he posed little threat to US interests or his neighbors. Let’s say Bush really thought that Saddam had WMDs. He could have chosen to let Hans Blix continue to do his job and find out Saddam had. Or he could start a war of conquest. I don’t quibble if Bush honestly thought Saddam had the weapons, although I think he actually knew better. It’s the choice that he made with this “knowledge” that history will forever condemn him for.
For example, here’s some clarification from Kerry concerning the Iraq resolution. He clearly hedging on authorizing war, but he also clearly says he thinks there are WMDs (empahsis added):
Now, if you want to argue that he was basing that opinion on faulty intelligence, that’s a different arguement. I believe you can find similar statements from other Democratic Senators from that time period. Such as (emphasis added):
Please don’t come back and say “but they didn’t necessarily want to go to war because of this”. I already admit that.
It must be, at the very least, a tacit acknowledgement of failure for friends like Shodan, whose hatred of Clinton seems to be congenital, to have their best defense of Bush be: “He’s the same as Clinton!” I would think that even conceiving of the argument would be embarrassing enough, let alone putting it forward so frequently that you have a ready link to prior instances of making the same desperate plea.
I know that the illogic and the erroneous features of the argument hang like burrs on a sweatshirt after a hike, but perhaps the best response to Shodan and his ilk is to pat their sad, sweet little heads, remember how painful it must be for them to be reduced to supporting Clinton, and let them go on their way.
I think you misunderstand me. I’m not denying that Democrats did believe it, just that it is irrelevant. I myself assumed it until the Powell speech. I stopped believing for two reasons:
- If we knew where the WMDs were, as Powell claimed, why didn’t the inspectors find them and
- Really solid evidence could have been shown to our allies and convinced them to join us. I understood it could not have been made public.
As has been remarked many times before, even if Clinton believed in WMDs, he didn’t invade.
I still think that justifying the invasion on the beliefs of Democrats before all the facts were available is bullshit.
I thought I had already made clear that the number of Democrats who believed in WMDs before the inspections is not in dispute. There would be no reason to bring this up except as cover for Bush ignoring the evidence against WMDs just before the war. I understand why the creationist wing of the Republican party has trouble with the idea that opinions change based on evidence, but I don’t understand why you have this problem.
I also said that I approved the use of the resolution to help pressure Saddam into accepting inspectors, and that Bush did this well. But when the WMDs were not found, why go to war on the pretext that there was an imminent threat (with images of mushroom clouds?) If you remember, polls at the time were against an invasion without UN involvement, and I suspect they would be strongly against an invasion just for regime change and democratization.
To review, here is a simplified timeline
[ul]
[li]Assumption that Saddam had WMDs, based on past history and resistance to inspections[/li][li]Joint UN/US pressure for inspections, backed by the resolution[/li][li]UN inspections, mostly unimpeded. The palaces, never visited before, were now fair game[/li][li]Invasion of Iraq based on an imminent threat to the US when nothing was found[/li][/ul]
What’s wrong with this picture?
I want to hear the answer to this also. It seems to me that there are three possibilities:
[ol]
[li]Bush knew there were no WMDs, and was lying[/li][li]Bush was too stupid to reason from the lack of results from the inspections to the conclusion that there were likely no WMDs[/li][li]Bush put himself in such a bubble that no one told him that no WMDs were found[/li][/ol]
I really don’t know which of these is more likely.
It’s amazing to me how some Clinton partisans still won’t admit he was cheating on his wife and some Bush partisans won’t admit he was wrong about Iraq. Some people apparently can watch somebody pour in the poison and still drink the kool-aid.
That amazes me, too. Could you be more specific and name names? I must have missed those posts.
Daniel
Nice equivalency attempt there - blowjob, war, whatever. :rolleyes:
FTR, I have never heard anyone say Clinton didn’t cheat on his wife. That it was nobody else’s business, sure, but not that it didn’t happen. Apparently you know of examples?
John, given the political atmosphere at the time, and the massaging of the intelligence given to the Senate by the executive branch, what else do you think Kerry could have said but what he did?