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1. i have read through the arguments you posted earlier, rnager, and i have to say that i find them curious. the question of consensus prior to the war amongst members of the political class seems anachronistic, in that it bypasses the entire series of questions about how this consensus was produced. say, for example, that the politicians you cite in 2002 were largely based on the same doctored intel that the downing street memo and others describe as being in process at the time they were written: what you then have is a wholly circular argument, in which you have to erase a signifcant amount of information (and logic) to take them at face value, as you seem to want to do. i assume that the slinton quotes were meant to clinch the argument: i do not see anything of the sort in them--all i see is surface resemblance.
2. the series of articles that you link affirming teh administrations claims concering saddam hussein and "terror" have the same problem: working from administration sources, constructing the arguments the administration wanted, etc.: no way to get from them to the problems with sources.
but that seems to be the point. your support for the administration seems to reinforce an inclination on your part to not look too deeply into how the administration itself operates.
the arguments that you present, then, are not the counter of those advanced in this thread against bushwar: they operate at a different logical and data level. you seem an intelligent enough shap: i suspect you know this. just dont pretend otherwise.
3. the "bushbashing" trope that you seem to enjoy almost beyond all others is simply absurd. it is arbitrary as a characterization of myself or anyone else who opposes the administration--you do not know me, you know nothing whatsoever about the affective relation i might have to george w bush, frankly. the trope means nothing--all it does is to function as an excuse for you not to think too much or look too hard into the facts of the matter.
btw, it is wholly false to claim that there was anything like consensus about the bushclaims for war. there might have been amongst memebrs of the american political class, but that speaks more to their benighted characteristics than to the quality of information tthen available. you might tyr to think about why the americans ended up going ahead without unsc approval outside the fatuous richard perle frame of reference (you know, the blame france charade)....the fact is that the busharguments were not compelling from the start. they did not persuade a majority of the security council.
as for your characterization of the ny times, it still makes me laugh. sometimes i wonder if you or anyone else actually beleives it, but for the most part i like to think of it as yet another example of conservative surrealism, of the accidental type (the best kind).
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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