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host · 09-08-2004, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

This may sound harsh but I’m not sure if you are really ready for a real discussion. I don’t mean this in a mean way but I think right now you are to busy letting other people think for you. I found your response to Superbelt’s obviously crackpot thread to be disheartening. I think you are to willing to accept what others say and not using your own mind to figure out if what they are saying makes sense. Basically you are susceptible to well packaged propaganda. This is the kind of thing you need to work out and not trust ANY source, just work out in your brain which seems to have any sort of logic to it.

Also while I’ve done long threads in the past where I site sources, look at page after page of information, and waste a lot of Googles bandwidth I am not going to do that here. I’ve done it enough and quite frankly I don’t have a lot of time for it. I will give you the information I have garnered over the last couple of years in everything from articles to interviews but if you ask me for a source I won’t have it. My brain doesn’t work that way, to me only the information is important, and from personal experience as a scientist, if you find someone who likes to quote sources while he talks about a subject, odds are he doesn’t know anything of his own on said subject. If I were doing my thesis again fine, but not for TFP. Also when I do such threads the subject tends to die and no one responds for some reason.

Now for your question.

This is not entirely true. The justification for said war was Saddams refusal to comply with the UN resolution, 1441 or whatever it was. I don’t think Saddam playing games with the UN inspectors needs to be looked at much further. Part of the problem is that EVERYONE had something to say about Saddam’s WMD’s, and there were reports of this and that system and how it could reach the US, or Israel, and what happened to all the Scuds etc etc etc that what was official and unofficial got blurred. Please note that the issue was never IF he had WMD’s but what would happen if they fell into the wrong hands. The fact that Saddam has WMD’s was not disputed. There were still WMD’s missing from what was known in the first Gulf war. He was playing games with the Brit and US planes in the no fly zone constantly, and he had kicked out the inspectors in 1998. Clinton ordered missile strikes in Desert Fox, to attack said WMD stock piles and at best they estimate they hit 78% of their targets. Clinton thought there were WMD’s, and Bush thought there were WMD’s. What happened to the WMD’s? That’s the real question and perhaps the scary one. One theory advanced by David Kay (or whoever the weapons inspector was) that they were probably shipped to Syria prior to the war. Yes we had intel of trucks passing over the boarder, Syria had/has a WMD program, Syria also had an illegal oil pipeline from Iraq, and Syria has a Baathist government like Iraq. Syria is also where most of those lovely foreign terrorists came over the border from to infiltrate Iraq. I find this very plausible as the amount of anthrax missing would fit into one large truck (they don’t call them WMD’s because they are big) and Saddam had YEARS to prepare. Now one thing that is apparent is that there was no full fledged WMD program going in Iraq at the time of the War. That is there were no secret factories making new ones. What is also apparent is that they were waiting for the sanctions to be lifted to begin again. They had the lab equipment, the personnel waiting for the green light. We can talk about who wanted to lift those sanctions another time.

I will also refrain from stating why invading Iraq was a good idea beyond WMD’s or the fact that 50 million people are free from truly tyrannical governments under GWB.

So I have to ask you, a few questions on your logic meter.

1. Did Bill Clinton also lie about Iraq having WMD’s?
2. If Bush lied about the WMD’s and knew it to be false, why didn’t he (being obviously evil) have some planted? It would not have been that hard. ONE soldier/agent could have planted enough Anthrax to do it. Hell they could have used the same strain as was found in the DC mail and really set it up.

According to the left GWB is both a bumbling fool, and at the same time capable of massive deception and intricate conspiracies that would make Machiavelli blush. You are going to have to trust your own judgment.

Ustwo, it is 02:00 AM EDT, Sept 9, '04 and there are 32 posts on this thread, and 24 of these 32 posts were submitted by members other than
the thread author, tecoyah. None of the 24 posts contain a single
corroborating link. You have posted 5 times on this thread, and in your
second paragraph of your first post (quoted above), you explained in advance why you did not intend to post any links to site sources. My read is that
you deftly discredited (in advance) anyone who posted links to site sources on this thread, and you made a persuasive argument to future lurkers and
participants of this thread to give your statements equal or higher weight
because, to quote you directly; "to me only the information is important, and from personal experience as a scientist, if you find someone who likes to quote sources while he talks about a subject, odds are he doesn’t know anything of his own on said subject. If I were doing my thesis again fine,". Although you predicted that odds favor me "not knowing anything of his own" regarding this subject, I will ask all readers to consider what
key Bush Administration officials said about Saddam and his WMD capacity prior to 9/11 2001, a date when events took place that increasingly have
the appearance of (to me, and to others) bearing a disturbing similarity to the
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm">
Reichstag fire in 1933</a> because of the striking parallels in the post disaster reactions of the sitting 1933 government and the sitting 2001 government, down to the "patriot act" type legislation both governments swiftly enacted,
and the coining and dissemination of the new term "homeland".
My first evidence that Bush and his administration knew the truth but later misled and distorted the actual threat Saddam posed to the rest of the
world are press remarks from Colin Powell on Feb. 24, 2001:"QUESTION: The Egyptian press editorial commentary that we have seen here has been bitterly aggressive in denouncing the U.S. role and not welcoming you. I am wondering whether you believe you accomplished anything during your meetings to assuage concerns about the air strikes against Iraq and the continuing sanctions?
SECRETARY POWELL: I received a very warm welcome from the leaders and I know there is some unhappiness as expressed in the Egyptian press. I understand that, but at the same time, with respect to the no-fly zones and the air strikes that we from time to time must conduct to defend our pilots, I just want to remind everybody that the purpose of those no-fly zones and the purpose of those occasional strikes to protect our pilots, is not to pursue an aggressive stance toward Iraq, but to defend the people that the no-fly zones are put in to defend. The people in the southern part of Iraq and the people in the northern part of Iraq, and these zones have a purpose, and their purpose is to protect people -- protect Arabs -- not to affect anything else in the region. And we have to defend ourselves.
We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue."
Please take note that the above quote comes from a page on the
U.S. State Departments own website. <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm">http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm</a>

Next, we offer a quote from National Security Advisor, Dr. Rice, date July 29, '01: 
"(Larry) KING: Still a menace, still a problem. But the administration failed, principally because of objections from Russia and China, to get the new sanctions policy through the United Nations Security Council. Now what? Do we do this for another 10 years?

(Dr. Condoleeza) RICE: Well, in fact, John, we have made progress on the sanctions. We, in fact, had four of the five, of the permanent five, ready to go along with smart sanctions.

We'll work with the Russians. I'm sure that we'll come to some resolution there, because it is important to restructure these sanctions to something that work.

But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

This has been a successful period, but obviously we would like to increase pressure on him, and we're going to go about doing that."
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0107/29/le.00.html">http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0107/29/le.00.html</a>

Now...Ustwo, I believe that you distort the position of the "left" that, "GWB is both a bumbling fool, and at the same time capable of massive deception and intricate conspiracies". I offer, in argument, this segment from a July 12, 2001
press briefing. Note the link (below) to the web page displaying this quote.
"Q Ari, on the subject of Karl Rove's involvement, one of the things that's attracted attention and criticism is the fact that Karl is the senior political strategist for the President and, yet, he's also deeply involved, and has been deeply involved in some policy issues. Some people say that's inappropriate. This, again, illustrates that nexus of politics and policy in Karl's portfolio. How would you respond to the criticisms that your senior political strategist --

MR. FLEISCHER: I dismiss it as utter nonsense from people who know how good and valued a worker Karl is for the President and for all of us here in the White House. Karl performs his job in a superb fashion, and Karl is in charge of inter-governmental affairs and people should bring business to Karl Rove if they want to have an issue considered, and Karl will exercise his discretion and judgment.

It's the right of the American people to bring their matters to the government, to everybody who works here in the White House, including Karl. Karl does his job.

Q The question is, is it appropriate, or is it, in fact, a conflict of interest to have Karl handling intergovernmental affairs and also serving as the chief political strategist for the President. Is that an inappropriate mixture of --

MR. FLEISCHER: Of course not.

Q Why isn't it?

MR. FLEISCHER: Why is it?

Q Because it's mixing policy and politics.

MR. FLEISCHER: I think all the decisions that the President has made -- the President makes are based on the merits. And those include a variety of considerations. " 
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010712-4.html">
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010712-4.html</a>
Karl Rove has been called "Bush's Brain" ;
 Rove is more than a master manipulator of the news media. He's a stealthy smear artist who does whatever he can get away with. And Rove has gotten away with plenty. That's how George W. Bush became governor of Texas ... and president of the United States. What remains to be seen is whether Rove's techniques will again prove successful when this country votes on Nov. 2.
<a href="http://yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_12937.shtml">
http://yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_12937.shtml</a>
Links to (off) site sources are required to make an argument here.....one
worth reading, anyway. The Mods are on record agreeing, and I suspect
many members will also agree.