You haven’t known me for two years. You don’t know me at all.
My problem with Neurotik and my problem with you in this post is strictly and totally because you have the arrogant stupidity to presume to lecture on what I am, and the conviction that your personal opinion represents incontrovertible fact.
That’s rabid fuckheadedness.
Imminent threat ?
Has anyone seen any sign of Bush’s “proof” that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US ? He’s backed away from mentioning it, but it was more central to his case justifying an immediate invasion than any all this WMD stuff. Does anyone have a link showing that Clinton also believed Iraq posed such a threat to the US ? This claim of revisionism on the WMD issues simply serves to obscure the real mystery of how Bush came to the startling conclusion that we must invade Iraq NOW, if not sooner.
Dropzone:
I wish I’d hit preview. Let’s drop it, huh?
Okay, but I’m still sobbing about that I haven’t known you for two years crack. (sniff) How soon they forget!
And my personal opinion DOES represent incontravertible fact. Subject to revision, of course.
Deliberately mis-read things much? I meant that saying that we’re in an Orwell novel is as stupid as Bush calling critics revisionists. It should have been damn obvious except for those looking to exaggerate something.
I just thought of something. I’m afraid of asking, because no matter the question SOMEONE is going to beat me over the head, but here goes.
Hussein did, at one time, have WMD, right?. Kurds, mustard gas, dead babies, anguish-on-the-right - y’all remember that, yes?
So… Anyone have any theories about what happened to it?
i didn’t get what you meant until you explained it here. be more clearer.
I’d like to see some evidence that Bush (or one of his people) never pointed out Saddam’s history of violence, cruelty, and violation of UN sanctions prior to going to war. Until then, anyone that claims “bullshit” on this is full of… well… you know.
The logical fallicy of each case remains the same. Just because someone once possessed something bad does not mean that they still do.
I also must disagree with your analogy of the search warrents. To be fair Saddham in fact did agree to the “search warrants”, albeit reluctantly.
but that wasn’t the reason we went to war, now was it, chief?
Scylla, if you would look back to the post-Labor Day to April 1, posts on these boards, if you would look back on the President’s State of the Union Address, if you would look back on Secretary Powell’s speech to the UN on the “first resolution,” if you would look back on Secretary Rumsfeld’s appearances on the pundit shows I think you will find that the rational for the invasion was repeatedly and consistently that Iraq had significant magazines of chemical and biological weapons and was on the verge of having nuclear weapons that he was going to use in the immediate future or turn over to Ben Laden and that the thereat was so immediate that there was no time for the UN inspectors to go in and look for them. We knew he had them. We knew stuff that was so persuasive that there could be no argument that the circumstances required an immediate invasion, but we could not reveal what it was we knew because it would reveal how our intelligence apparatus worked. The danger was chemical weapons (nerve agent), the danger was biological agents (small pox and anthrax) and very, very shortly the danger was going to be nuclear weapons. We had to act and we had to act now. There was no time to let the UN satisfy its self of the truth of our claims. There was no time to form a coalition of nations. It had to be done now. So ran the rational. Anyone who questioned it was promptly subjected to the “why do you hate America” routine.
It was done.
Now there have been no chemical or biological agents uncovered. There have been no nuclear weapons found. Now we are getting pretty solid indications that regular line intelligence agencies were telling the White House that there was no reliable evidence that Iraq had chemical-biological-nuclear weapons. Now we are getting indications that the Administration rejected the findings of the regular intelligence agencies, or told them to go look some more. Now it is starting to look like the Administration ended up taking the unsupported allegations of Iraqi exiles and ex-patriots who would say that Sadam ate live puppies for breakfast, raw, if it would serve to get them into power, and who were the very intelligence sources that the regular agencies were saying were not reliable.
Now the President and the Secretary of Defense and Dr. Rice are no longer talking about the huge imminent risk from Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. They are no longer talking about the immediacy and magnitude those weapons those weapons presented as of April 1. Instead these people are talking about weapons programs (whatever those are) and noncompliance with UN resolutions (but without discussing the dilemma of the US using military force to uphold the integrity of the UN when the UN made it pretty clear that it would prefer to look after its own integrity, thank you very much.), and what a terrible, no good, very bad man Sadam was. Now the President and his people are pretty quiet about the refusal of France and Germany to be persuaded of the immediacy and clarity of the Iraqi threat. Now all we hear is that Sadam was a despot. We do not hear anything about the rational for the war. What we do hear now is that people who remind the Administration of the publicly stated reasons that the invasion was necessary and that there was no time to waste are revising history.
Scylla, when the Emperor has no cloths, it is not revisionism to point that out even though the Emperor wants to talk about his haircut. Something appears to be seriously wrong here. It is not helpful for you to meltdown in the process. If there is a legitimate defense of what has happened I would like to hear it. Were the President and his Administration mislead as to the clarity, magnitude and immediacy of an Iraqi threat to the security and vital national interests of the United States? If so, by whom and how? If not mislead, what on earth has happened to the chemical-biological and maybe nuclear weapons? How could those things disappear without a trace?
I guess my problem with Bush’s statement is that there’s no historical consensus to revise yet. These events are still happening, and they’re still controversial. (as seen by the posts in this thread) Maybe 30 years from now, we’ll be able to talk about historical revisionism, but not yet.
I’m not disputing this. However, the whole reason for the weapons inspectors was to be given proof that the WMD and other prohibited weapons were destroyed. I do not argue that this would be something of a legal problem if the cops tried that with your neighbor (“Hi! We know you’re a prior felon, so we’re sending some detectives over to search your house for proof that you’ve destroyed all the drugs we figure you probably have”). However, this WAS the reason for the UN resolutions, right?
Agreeing to comply and actually complying are two different things. The report that S.H. gave was incomplete, according to Blix. Given S.H.'s history of either giving incomplete reports or ignoring previous resulotions altogether, I found his evasiveness before the war to be very suspect.
i don’t doubt for a second that S.H. is a very bad man. The problem I’m having now is that I am starting to think that Bush jumped on some outdated intel, and gambled on a big WMD find. This, if true, would be irresponsable to say the least.
I’m still taking a wait-and-see approach on both the missing WMD and the Bush Lied theory.
And while I’m actually posting on something besides the latest stuff in Cafe society for a change, has there been any actual proof about the supposed terrorist training camp Salman Paks? Was it used to train hijackers, and is there a clear link between the camp and Al-Queda?
I got this from another message board, but I liked it.
Revision:
1a : to look over again in order to correct or improve
©1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
2a : to make a new, amended, improved, or up-to-date version of
©1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
so a “revisioinist historian” would be someone who re-interprets history correctly.
Not to mention the healthy dose of chutzpah, for extra flavor.
Sorry, can’t buy that – we are talking about Saddam Hussein, the “Butcher of Baghdad,” the guy who’s so evil and nasty that he tortures people for giggles and gasses Kurds for belly-laughs, yadda yadda yadda. With a guy who’s supposed to be so totally ruthless, do you really believe that he would look at the 250,000 US forces camped on his border and say “Nah, destroy the WMDs, don’t use 'em on the Americans”? 
Just out of curiosity, I found myself wondering what the odds were that an administration that faked documents to support their position, might also destroy documents that might not support their position. Such as ‘proof’ of something or other. And then wondering if that might not also be ‘revisionist history’ in the making.
This is all purely theoretical, of course. q;}
I hate the term RH mostly not because it doesn’t happen, but that it is basically an epithet, and lately it is used to attack historians who are CORRECTING what was ORIGINALLY revisionist history: usually of the utterly false, mythical, and sloppy kind. When someone points out that land battles were not fought under the US flag during the Revolutionary war, and all the pictures (Washington crossing the Delaware, the spirit of 1776, etc) that feature it flying prominently are just dead wrong, they are attacked as a “revisionist.” But it’s the people who imagined the flags were that are the revisionists: few serious historians ever thought that in the first place.
See? Do you see now that Cognitive Dissonance plagues our country! It has grown to epidemic proportions, and struck down friend Scylla in the prime of life! “What a noble mind is here o’erthrown!”
When your CD volunteer comes calling, give, and give generously, that these victims of Cognitive Dissonance might once again enjoy the clarity of thought that is thier birthright!
And watch you local listings for the Cognitive Dissonance Telethon, with a star-studded array of talent (special appeanance by the Dixie Chicks!).
Stand up and be counted in the fight against CD!