I was misled

Tim McNamara:

Quoted message said:

MoveOn.org insists on sending hysterical e-mails to as many e-mail
mailboxes as they can almost every day. That's what annoys me, in
that one cannot participate in their Web site and opt out of this (or
couldn't, anyway- maybe that has changed).

You can opt out of their emails by notifying them.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

While at the same time you use many terms which are stronger than
much of MoveOn.org's. I don't think you're much different (which is
not a bad thing when it comes to this topic).

Again, the difference is that I don't insist on collecting information
about people and e-mailing them my opinions.

Quoted message said:

This has nothing to do with ideology and what the group is trying to
accomplish in political terms.

Ah, but it does. It's a subtle contradiction of their claims to a
liberalist position.

I think you're reading too much into it. Organisations like MoveOn do
rely on "sticky" tactics to try to keep initially interested people
interested. I'm not sure how you associate this with being
contra-liberal. I'm sure you've observed that many people do tend to
become apathetic after a time, regardless of reason. I don't think
there's anything particularly insidious about MoveOn chasing after
people to disseminate information, especially since it's not an
anonymous shadow from which you can't disentangle yourself (like common
spammers).

Quoted message said:

It's the conservatives that support the
intrusion of government into private lives, the attempt to legislate
socially conservative Christian mores into the criminal code and civil
codes, and yet here we have liberals adopting the same technique.

Now you're projecting in exaggeration. I haven't seen any attempts by
MoveOn to "legislate socially conservative Christian mores into the
criminal code and civil codes", nor is their "intrusion" comparable to
what Ashcroft's propositions define. You can't seriously think that a
request to divulge your email address to an information website (which
you can choose not to participate in) is comparable to being held
captive indefinitely by law enforcement organisations, without charges
and representation?

Quoted message said:

You cannot defeat the enemy if you become like them- that's just an
insidious form of capitulation.

You cannot defeat the enemy if you can't distinguish who your enemy is.

Tim McNamara said:

Mark Hickey said:

Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

And what objective evidence is there of contacts between Al Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein?

Look it up in the 9/11 commission report.

You've got yourself an advance copy?

They (both sides other than the real partisan shills) have made it
perfectly clear that they've found multiple instances of contact
between Saddam's guys (including one of his sons once) and Al Qaeda.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

You have to believe it's a conspiracy that's been going on for many,
many years - and that cut across every party and political
boundary... and one that included just about every intelligence
agency on the planet.

And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was no
unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq posed any
but the most far-fetched threat to the United States.

"We want to seriously diministh the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction program". President Clinton, Feb '98

"The risk that the leaders of (Iraq) will use nuclear, chemical or
biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security
risk we face". Clinton's SOS Madeleine Albright, Feb '98

"We urge you... to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's
refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs". Letter to
President Clinton, signed by Sens. Tom Daschle and John Kerry among
others in Oct '98

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and
developing weapons of mass destruction". Sen. Ted Kennedy, Fall,
2002.

"We know (Saddam) has stored secret supplies of biological and
chemical weapons throughout his country". Al Gore, Sept 2002.

Quoted message said:

Saddam Hussein
was a mosquito on our butts, frankly.

Uh huh... that explain's Clintons Secretary of State calling Iraq the
"greatest security threat we face" I guess.

Quoted message said:

And a mosquito that the
Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever since the "ragged
ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied Clinton very hard to do
what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough not to make that mistake.

How smart would that have been had we gotten hit with anthrax or VX
instead of Boeings?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Was some of the intelligence bogus? No doubt. Was Saddam a danger
to the US, US and allies' interests? No doubt. Could Saddam have
disrupted the world economy by stirring things up in the region? No
doubt. Should Saddam have been taken out? No doubt.

Sorry, Mark, I have lots and lots of doubt. Was some of the
intelligence bogus- yes, much of it was but even more bogus were the
inept conclusions drawn from practically no evidence at all,
fabricated out of the whole cloth and presented to the UN by Colin
Powell as concrete evidence. Saddam was not a threat to the US proper
and only a minor threat to US interests in other places. He was
pretty much a pariah in the Arab world for a variety of reasons and
wasn't going to get a lot of cooperation there. Iran hated him, the
Kuwaitis weren't going to cooperate and the Saudis know where their
bread is buttered. The notion of Saddam Hussein as a threat to the US
and its interests is smoke and mirrors. Disrupting the world economy?
With what? Rocks and slings? Half-starved infantry? Please pull the
other one, it's got bells. How many Iraqis were involved in 9/11?

Funny how consistent those "inept conclusions" were over the years,
huh? You are trying for all you're worth to make it sound like Bush
invented the concept of Iraqi WMD. You seem to forget they admitted
having huge stockpiles of the stuff. That, IMHO, makes them a "bit
more dangerous than a mosquito".

Quoted message said:

Now, the interesting question is "should Saddam have been taken out."
That's not an easy yes/no answer. In terms of American interests, the
answer is "no." There was no reason to take him out. He didn't have
the money to develop a credible threat against us.

Hmmmm. Did you notice the billions of dollars that we found in his
palaces? Did you read about the 10,000 liters of anthrax the UN
weapons inspectors concluded he still probably had before the war? Do
you remember him trying to assassinate GHWB?

Quoted message said:

Should he have
been "taken out" because of his brutality and tyranny against the
Iraqi people? By that standard there are other places we'd need to
invade to topple governments- North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and
Israel. Yet we're not going to any of those places because we have
close ties (Israel and Saudi Arabia), no compelling reason (Iran) or a
powderkeg situation with real perils (North Korea).

He was going to be taken out - it was just a matter of when. He
obviously wasn't going to cooperate with the UN weapons inspectors,
and as we learn more and more about the millions of dollars that went
to (among others) "senior UN officials" we're going to find out why
the UN didn't do what should have been done LONG before the US and
coalition partners had to do it without them. I hope the UN survives
this crisis, cleans house and becomes at least marginally effective
again.

Quoted message said:

I think the question really boils down to "does the United States have
the right and the authority to invade countries whose governments we
don't like, and replace them?" We've done it twice in three years-
with some justification in the case of Afghanistan because of their
proven complicity with Al Qaeda, although we've since botched the job
quite thoroughly and will have a failed state on our hands probably by
the end of next winter unless the opium crop is good. Now, I do not
think that we have the right or authority to engage in toppling other
regimes unless those regimes present a clear and present danger to the
US, and even then I think we have to wait for provocation- after all,
it's illegal for you or I to shoot some drunk in a bar because we
think he's going to plan to hurt us.

Saddam richly earned his fate. We've gone over that a thousand times
- maybe you think we should have waited until we got hit with Iraqi VX
or anthrax (which I hope is lost, but fear it isn't)... I don't.
Saddam's not the guy who deserves the benefit of the doubt (at least
not after 12 friggin' years!!!).

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Saddam had every chance to avoid the war, and took none of them.
That's either 'cuz he's really dumb (don't recall anyone ever
accusing him of that) or because he WAS hiding something. I guess
we'll know for sure some day.

Hussein's situation is easily understood, I think. He was a tyranical
dictator and suffered the situation that all such people end up in.
He ws isolated from reality by those around him, who told him what he
wanted to hear because they thought they'd kill him if they told him
the truth. He thought he had the military strength to stave off the
US and its assistants and acted accordingly. Turned out he was wrong.
He probably thought he *was* hiding something, that he did actually
have WMDs even though, as it turns out, he didn't. In short, he was
living in a fantasy world.

Could be - but there was a frightening amount of evidence that the WMD
weren't a fantasy. I dearly hope that's the case though.

Quoted message said:

The actions by the so-called "insurgents" are also easily understood,
although we must remember that until today, it is the US and the
coalition that were the insurgents; with a quasi-functioning Iraqi
government this is not as clear cut, and after democratic elections-
if those actually happen- then indeed the groups that are called
"insurgents" in the US media will be insurgents if they continue to
attack their own government. There is still a marked tendency in the
US media to assume that in fact we are in the right, that the weight
of moral authority is on our side, but that's only from one point of
view- and one with a vested interest in self-justification.

However, I agree with that viewpoint. The Iraqis have a great
opportunity to do what none of their neighbors has ever managed (well,
other than Israel, but let's not open up THAT can of worms). I'm sure
it's not going to be a love fest any time soon - but the rank and file
Iraqi has got to prefer any democratic government to the Baathist
party rule.

Quoted message said:

I posted a while ago that, while I have no respect for GWB, his
Cabinet or his policies, I'd still be [censored] if Canada decided to
swoop into the US and change our government in order to make our lives
better. I'd be an "insurgent" in that situation, even if Canada had
the backing of the rest of the world- it's my country, my government
and I'll deal with it thank-you-very-much. Fortunately for us, Canada
seems to be a level headed bunch of folks.

It appears they'll be even MORE level headed after today's election.

Quoted message said:

This is what the Iraqi
insurgents are doing- I am sure they see themselves as patriots and
freedom fighters.

There are extremists in every group (hey, we have our share of 'em in
this newsgroup). ;-) But the groups we've historically identified as
"freedom fighters" are those who have the support of the vast majority
of the population - not those who try to terrorize the population by
killing them en masse. Big difference, IMHO.

Quoted message said:

There's less excuse for the non-Iraqis who have
entered the country in order to attack Americans and their assistants
more conveniently, however, and I suspect that much of the
"insurgency" is in fact from those people and is just terrorism. It
was to be expected and I am sure no one is surprised that Saudis,
Jordanians, etc. are involved.

I'm not surprised either - and hope their actions build the resolve of
those who see who we're dealing with.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

G.T. said:

tcmedara said:

Tim McNamara said:

And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was no
unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq posed any
but the most far-fetched threat to the United States. Saddam Hussein
was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a mosquito that the
Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever since the "ragged
ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied Clinton very hard to do
what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough not to make that mistake.

Patent revisionism.

Hmmm, something like this?

http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

So to moveon.org "censure" apparently means "edit out the reply".

Funny they beat up Rumsfield for saying almost exactly what Madeleine
Albright did about Iraq.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Mark Hickey said:

G.T. said:

Hmmm, something like this?

http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

Just for those who didn't bother to watch...

Rumsfield says (essentially) "the media is the ones claiming that we
said Iraq was an imminent threat", we never said that.

A reporter read a quote from Rumsfield saying (essentially) "most
estimate Iraq won't be a nuclear threat for 5-7 years, I wouldn't be
so sure".

OK... so it could be less thatn 5-7 years...

Then they read another Rumsfield quote that says (essentially) "no
nation poses a more imminent threat to the US...".

OK... so they're the MOST "imminent". If I'm in a kindergarten class
(as a visitor, of course...) I might be the tallest, but that doens't
make me "tall".

Word play and obfuscation (since they cut out Rumsfield reply). That
speaks to moveon.org's credibility (and to that of the reporter)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Mark Hickey said:

Do you remember him [Hussein] trying to assassinate GHWB?

You're sure about that? About that claim, Seymour Hersh wrote

A senior White House official recently told me that one of
the seemingly most persuasive elements of the report had been
overstated and was essentially incorrect. And none of the
Clinton Administration officials I interviewed over a ten-week
period this summer claimed that there was any empirical
evidence—a "smoking gun"—directly linking Saddam or any of
his senior advisers to the alleged assassination attempt.
The case against Iraq was, and remains, circumstantial.

The reprisal ordered by Clinton killed eight Iraqi civilians.

I'm not saying Hersh's article is the last word,
but it is worth reading:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020930fr_archive02

Tom Ace

Mark Hickey said:

G.T. said:

tcmedara said:

Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote:

>And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was no
>unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq posed any
>but the most far-fetched threat to the United States. Saddam Hussein
>was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a mosquito that the
>Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever since the "ragged
>ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied Clinton very hard to do
>what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough not to make that mistake.

Patent revisionism.

Hmmm, something like this?

http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

So to moveon.org "censure" apparently means "edit out the reply".

Funny they beat up Rumsfield for saying almost exactly what Madeleine
Albright did about Iraq.

Why do you always turn on the blinders whenever one of your heroes is
caught blatantly lying?

Greg

--
Destroy your safe and happy lives
Before it is too late
The battles we fought were long and hard
Just not to be consumed by rock'n'roll

Jobst Brandt said:

... Take off those jingoistic blinders and look. ... Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

Mighty powerful words for someone who has never worn a blue helmet.

--

Jose Rizal _@_._ said:

Tim McNamara:

Quoted message said:

MoveOn.org insists on sending hysterical e-mails to as many e-mail
mailboxes as they can almost every day. That's what annoys me, in
that one cannot participate in their Web site and opt out of this
(or couldn't, anyway- maybe that has changed).

You can opt out of their emails by notifying them.

Shouldn't have to. Should be able to opt out of getting them in the
first place. But one could not do that a year or so ago, I don't know
if that is the case now. And that's my point- this tendency to feel
the need to control access to information (which occurs in both the
liberals and the conservatives, part of what Nader refers to as the
"towering similarirites" between the Democrats and the Republicans) is
anti-freedom and anti-democracy.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This has nothing to do with ideology and what the group is trying
to accomplish in political terms.

Ah, but it does. It's a subtle contradiction of their claims to a
liberalist position.

I think you're reading too much into it. Organisations like MoveOn
do rely on "sticky" tactics to try to keep initially interested
people interested.

And obviously I abhor "sticky" tactics.

Quoted message said:

I'm not sure how you associate this with being contra-liberal.

IMHO it's a tacit admission that they think liberalism can't hold
people's attention on its own merits.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It's the conservatives that support the intrusion of government
into private lives, the attempt to legislate socially conservative
Christian mores into the criminal code and civil codes, and yet
here we have liberals adopting the same technique.

Now you're projecting in exaggeration.

Exaggeration was not intended. I didn't have a better way to phrase
it. Hence my choice of the word "techniques" to try to differentiate-
obviously unsuccessfully- the strategy from the content.

Quoted message said:

I haven't seen any attempts by MoveOn to "legislate socially
conservative Christian mores into the criminal code and civil
codes", nor is their "intrusion" comparable to what Ashcroft's
propositions define.

Now you're just being concretist.

Quoted message said:

You can't seriously think that a request to divulge your email
address to an information website (which you can choose not to
participate in) is comparable to being held captive indefinitely by
law enforcement organisations, without charges and representation?

And absurdist.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

You cannot defeat the enemy if you become like them- that's just an
insidious form of capitulation.

You cannot defeat the enemy if you can't distinguish who your enemy
is.

I have met the enemy and he is us.

tcmedara said:

Tim McNamara said:

And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was
no unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq
posed any but the most far-fetched threat to the United States.
Saddam Hussein was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a
mosquito that the Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever
since the "ragged ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied
Clinton very hard to do what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough
not to make that mistake.

Patent revisionism.

Public record, even if you don't like it.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Was some of the intelligence bogus? No doubt. Was Saddam a danger

Quoted message said:

to the US, US and allies' interests? No doubt. Could Saddam have
disrupted the world economy by stirring things up in the region?
No doubt. Should Saddam have been taken out? No doubt.

Sorry, Mark, I have lots and lots of doubt. Was some of the
intelligence bogus- yes, much of it was but even more bogus were
the inept conclusions drawn from practically no evidence at all,
fabricated out of the whole cloth and presented to the UN by Colin
Powell as concrete evidence. Saddam was not a threat to the US
proper and only a minor threat to US interests in other places. He
was pretty much a pariah in the Arab world for a variety of reasons
and wasn't going to get a lot of cooperation there. Iran hated
him, the Kuwaitis weren't going to cooperate and the Saudis know
where their bread is buttered. The notion of Saddam Hussein as a
threat to the US and its interests is smoke and mirrors.
Disrupting the world economy? With what? Rocks and slings?
Half-starved infantry? Please pull the other one, it's got bells.
How many Iraqis were involved in 9/11?

Your understanding of regional security is pretty scarce.

Gee, I guess I'll stop listening to those know-nothings in the NSC and
the State Department. I didn't realize that you knew so much better
than they. Thank you for clarifying that.

Quoted message said:

Our military presence in the 90's was one of the reasons that Saddam
wasn't able to cause major regional disruptions in the Gulf Region.

The lack of money resulting from economic sanctions was Hussein's
biggest problem. The military presence of the Gulf War coalition
forces was certainly also a factor.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think the question really boils down to "does the United States
have the right and the authority to invade countries whose
governments we don't like, and replace them?" We've done it twice
in three years- with some justification in the case of Afghanistan
because of their proven complicity with Al Qaeda, although we've
since botched the job quite thoroughly and will have a failed state
on our hands probably by the end of next winter unless the opium
crop is good. Now, I do not think that we have the right or
authority to engage in toppling other regimes unless those regimes
present a clear and present danger to the US, and even then I think
we have to wait for provocation- after all, it's illegal for you or
I to shoot some drunk in a bar because we think he's going to plan
to hurt us.

It's not a question of who we like and don't like, it's a question
of what consitutes a threat to US national security and is
pre-emption a viable policy. 9/11 is a strong argument for
pre-emption.

No, it actually doesn't. Pre-emption is a dangerous path.

Quoted message said:

To suggest that US forces are committed on the basis of popularity
is just silly.

Popularity has nothing to do with my statement, as I am sure you well
know.

Quoted message said:

Comparing national security policy to a drunken bar fight is nothing
but a straw man, the two aren't even remotely alike. It's a false
analogy.

Wrong. It's boiling down the situation to simple elements to examine
the ethical implications. This is exactly what pre-emption is: "I am
going to take out that sonofabitch before he can take me out." What
you don't like is that the analysis shows the ethical and moral
indefensibility of pre-emptive action. Some level of pre-emption is
ethically and morally permissible when certain conditions are met:
imminent intent, imminent ability and imminent execution. So,
pre-emptively arresting the hijackers before they got on the planes,
had the pieces of that puzzle been put together, would have been
appropriate. Shooting them at home before they left to go to the
airports would not have been ethically or morally appropriate, even
though I suspect most of the Bush Administration and perhaps most of
the American public would countenance this. The predominant opinion
is not necessarily correct.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The actions by the so-called "insurgents" are also easily
understood, although we must remember that until today, it is the
US and the coalition that were the insurgents;

No, we (along with our allies) were the conquerors who imposed our
sovereign control over the defeated regime. We did it openly with
direct application of military force. There was no "insurgency".
To argue that is merely an effort to argue moral equivilency.

The arrogance of your language is appalling, as is your near complete
misunderstanding of how that situation is perceived by other cultures.
Your thinking, like the Bush Administration, is conditioned by the
results of WWII even though those were the very last wars to have such
an unconditional ending. However, I will grant that my use of
"insurgent" in this context was out of keeping with the dictionary in
that we were an invading force rather than one arising internally. An
insurgency can be quite in the open, however; covertness is not part
of the definition.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

with a quasi-functioning Iraqi government this is not as clear cut,
and after democratic elections- if those actually happen- then
indeed the groups that are called "insurgents" in the US media will
be insurgents if they continue to attack their own government.
There is still a marked tendency in the US media to assume that in
fact we are in the right, that the weight of moral authority is on
our side, but that's only from one point of view- and one with a
vested interest in self-justification.

We do have the weight of moral authority. We are seeking to impose
security, prosperity, and democracy in a stable self-governing
state. We're not the ones cutting of peoples heads and bragging
about it. It might not sit well with you Tim, but the Coalition
really are the good guys over there right now.

We have asigned ourselves the weight of moral authority, which is an
entirely different thing altogether than actually having that
authority. Indeed, our actions were opposed by most of the world
(although as I mentioned earlier, consensus does not necessarily make
right). If indeed we are the Good Guys, then why do 85% of Iraqis
want us out of their country? If we are the Good Guys, why have we
killed thousands upon thousands of civilians? Your attempts to paint
this in black and white are amusing but ineffective. This is a very
tangled situation colored in shades of grey. We may not be the ones
beheading people and bragging about it, but we were the ones involved
in torturing and humiliating prisoners and bragging about that.
Perhaps you've forgotten.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I posted a while ago that, while I have no respect for GWB, his
Cabinet or his policies, I'd still be [censored] if Canada decided
to swoop into the US and change our government in order to make our
lives better.

If the government of Canada was a violent, dictatorial, and
threating regime, that flouted international law and UN sanctions
combined with a history of WMD use both against it's enemies and
it's own people then I'd hope the US would "swoop" in and change
governments. Hell I wouldn't want that [censored] on my northern border!

Hmmm, did you actually read what I wrote? You seem to have gotten it
180 degrees backwards. But as far as your comments go, your own
government is treading near being dictatorial and threatening, and has
flouted international law, and has used weapons of mass destruction.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'd be an "insurgent" in that situation, even if Canada had the
backing of the rest of the world- it's my country, my government
and I'll deal with it thank-you-very-much.

Then you would probably die a martyr for the cause.

Possibly. Isn't it an honor to die in the defense of one's own
country? Apparently you don't see it that way.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Fortunately for us, Canada seems to be a level headed bunch of
folks. This is what the Iraqi insurgents are doing- I am sure they
see themselves as patriots and freedom fighters.

Nice romantic thought, but the average Iraqi has no love for the
insurgents even if they are not all that thrilled with the Coalition
presence. Remember, you're freedom loving insurgents are the ones
cutting off heads of captives on film and bragging about it to the
world. They aren't nice guys and they don't want freedom. They
want YOU and me dead.

Again you distort what yu cannot directly refute. I am sure that the
Iraqi "insurgents" see themselves as patriots and freedom fighters.
Who the hell is going to say "our side is wrong but I'm going to kill
myself for it anyway"???? They do indeed want freedom- it happens to
be freedom from your view of the world and mine, from the occupation
of the Middle East by pro-American interests. Now, you and I might
agree that they are misguided to say the least, and that they'd be
much better off working cooperatively with the West, but they simply
don't see it that way. A little historical research into the forces
forming the modern Middle East might help you in understanding this
situation; the main proximate roots are relatively recent, within the
past 200 years.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

There's less excuse for the non-Iraqis who have entered the country
in order to attack Americans and their assistants more
conveniently, however, and I suspect that much of the "insurgency"
is in fact from those people and is just terrorism. It was to be
expected and I am sure no one is surprised that Saudis, Jordanians,
etc. are involved.

So which is it? The story is that the Shia milita appear to have
been fighting the US occupation for nationalist motives, but have
realized they are fighting a losing battle. The "insurgents" --
Iraqi or otherwise -- are shaping up to be either Ba'athis fanatics
(Saddam's thugs primarily, a far cry from freedom fighters) or
Muslim whackos who want to destroy western civilization.

Heres some news for you, Tom. It's both. And those aren't the only
two sides of the equation.

Mark Hickey said:

Funny they beat up Rumsfield for saying almost exactly what
Madeleine Albright did about Iraq.

Thaks for reminding me. I never much liked her either.

Mark Hickey <[email hidden]> writes:

<snipped lots of quotes>

Every generation has its idiots, and the Clinton Administration had
its share. You seem to keep forgetting, Mark, that I didn't like
Clinton either. I disliked him less than I dislike GWB, to be sure,
but I didn't like him. He started out promising and then turned
himself into one of the most successful moderate Republican presidents
in this century. I'm a liberal. I'm not a Democrat. I've even been
known to vote Republican when I think the candidate is a good one.

Quoted message said:

Funny how consistent those "inept conclusions" were over the years,
huh? You are trying for all you're worth to make it sound like Bush
invented the concept of Iraqi WMD. You seem to forget they admitted
having huge stockpiles of the stuff. That, IMHO, makes them a "bit
more dangerous than a mosquito".

Heavens no, Bush didn't invent it. He did rationalize a war based on
faulty data, assumptions and conclusions- a bit of a difference. But
"they" admitted having something that they, in fact, did not have?
How is that an admission?

You know, one of the oddest things was Iraq's periodic refusals to
cooperate with the inspection process. It never made any sense,
especially in light of our spectacular finds of... nothing. I really
wonder if those refusals were local decisions, undertaken to prevent
not the UN from finding weapons but to prevent Hussein from finding
out he didn't have any...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Now, the interesting question is "should Saddam have been taken
out." That's not an easy yes/no answer. In terms of American
interests, the answer is "no." There was no reason to take him out.
He didn't have the money to develop a credible threat against us.

Hmmmm. Did you notice the billions of dollars that we found in his
palaces?

Yes. And which were not used to develop a credible threat (probably
because he already believed the credible threat existed).

Quoted message said:

Did you read about the 10,000 liters of anthrax the UN weapons
inspectors concluded he still probably had before the war? Do you
remember him trying to assassinate GHWB?

And yet those 10,000 liters don't exist as far as can be ascertained
by the most powerful intelligence gathering agencies in history.
Hmmm. 10,000 liters of anything is hard to hide. Oh, yeah,
assassinating Bush Sr. How did that turn out, anyway?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Should he have been "taken out" because of his brutality and tyranny
against the Iraqi people? By that standard there are other places
we'd need to invade to topple governments- North Korea, Iran, Saudi
Arabia and Israel. Yet we're not going to any of those places
because we have close ties (Israel and Saudi Arabia), no compelling
reason (Iran) or a powderkeg situation with real perils (North
Korea).

He was going to be taken out - it was just a matter of when.

He probably didn't have to be taken out, I suspect. He would have
been taken out from within eventually, as he weakened. Not that his
replacement would have been kind and benevolent. I have no doubt
about the value of bringing participatory government to Iraq, but (1)
I strongly doubt that democracy can be imposed (and I'd be happy to be
wrong about that) and (2) I very much doubt that the way it was done
was the best way. The democratization of Iraq- so obviously an
aferthought on the part of the Bush Administration, developed when the
underwhelming joy and welcome from the Iraqi people caught them by
surprise- is frankly a smokescreen cover for a well-known publicly
discussed agenda on the part of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al that was in
place long before Bush got into the White House. 9/11 and the
liberation of Iraq are the excuses, not the reasons. I find that
reprehensible in the extreme.

Quoted message said:

He obviously wasn't going to cooperate with the UN weapons
inspectors, and as we learn more and more about the millions of
dollars that went to (among others) "senior UN officials" we're
going to find out why the UN didn't do what should have been done
LONG before the US and coalition partners had to do it without them.
I hope the UN survives this crisis, cleans house and becomes at
least marginally effective again.

The UN is as effective as it ever will be, by design. Any more
effective and it would be a danger to national sovereignty around the
world. That's not going to be permitted for a very long time indeed.
I am waiting to learn more about these supposed millions of dollars
and to see what that leads to.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think the question really boils down to "does the United States
have the right and the authority to invade countries whose
governments we don't like, and replace them?" We've done it twice
in three years- with some justification in the case of Afghanistan
because of their proven complicity with Al Qaeda, although we've
since botched the job quite thoroughly and will have a failed state
on our hands probably by the end of next winter unless the opium
crop is good. Now, I do not think that we have the right or
authority to engage in toppling other regimes unless those regimes
present a clear and present danger to the US, and even then I think
we have to wait for provocation- after all, it's illegal for you or
I to shoot some drunk in a bar because we think he's going to plan
to hurt us.

Saddam richly earned his fate. We've gone over that a thousand
times - maybe you think we should have waited until we got hit with
Iraqi VX or anthrax (which I hope is lost, but fear it isn't)... I
don't. Saddam's not the guy who deserves the benefit of the doubt
(at least not after 12 friggin' years!!!).

Whether he earned his fate or not is not the question, it's the
justification. The real question is as I stated, whether the United
States has the right and the moral authority to make the rest of the
world be what whatever administration is in power thinks it ought to
be. Do we have the right to overthrow governments, reneg on our
treaties and agreements, place ourselves above international law when
those laws become inconvenient? The world is changing, we will soon
not be the only economic superpower and shortly after that will not be
the only military superpower. The current policy of "walk loudly and
whack people with a big stick" is ill-considered and will only breed
enemies and contempt. It's empirism, and every empire falls
eventually.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Saddam had every chance to avoid the war, and took none of them.
That's either 'cuz he's really dumb (don't recall anyone ever
accusing him of that) or because he WAS hiding something. I guess
we'll know for sure some day.

Hussein's situation is easily understood, I think. He was a
tyranical dictator and suffered the situation that all such people
end up in. He ws isolated from reality by those around him, who
told him what he wanted to hear because they thought they'd kill him
if they told him the truth. He thought he had the military strength
to stave off the US and its assistants and acted accordingly.
Turned out he was wrong. He probably thought he *was* hiding
something, that he did actually have WMDs even though, as it turns
out, he didn't. In short, he was living in a fantasy world.

Could be - but there was a frightening amount of evidence that the
WMD weren't a fantasy. I dearly hope that's the case though.

Except that the utter lack of actual WMDs rather appears to belie
this.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The actions by the so-called "insurgents" are also easily
understood, although we must remember that until today, it is the US
and the coalition that were the insurgents; with a quasi-functioning
Iraqi government this is not as clear cut, and after democratic
elections- if those actually happen- then indeed the groups that are
called "insurgents" in the US media will be insurgents if they
continue to attack their own government. There is still a marked
tendency in the US media to assume that in fact we are in the right,
that the weight of moral authority is on our side, but that's only
from one point of view- and one with a vested interest in
self-justification.

However, I agree with that viewpoint. The Iraqis have a great
opportunity to do what none of their neighbors has ever managed
(well, other than Israel, but let's not open up THAT can of worms).
I'm sure it's not going to be a love fest any time soon - but the
rank and file Iraqi has got to prefer any democratic government to
the Baathist party rule.

Well, I certainly hope so. Having grown up in a more-or-less
democracy (technically not a pure democracy, anyway), I see it as a
reasonably functional means of organizing a nation. I also think that
our democracy is currently facing terrible dangers from bad policy and
a frequently ignorant populace which has already resulted in a loss of
personal liberties; in many ways GWB and his crowd of sociopaths and
schemers are the symptom rather than the cause. But tat's another
off-topic thread...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This is what the Iraqi insurgents are doing- I am sure they see
themselves as patriots and freedom fighters.

There are extremists in every group (hey, we have our share of 'em
in this newsgroup). ;-) But the groups we've historically
identified as "freedom fighters" are those who have the support of
the vast majority of the population - not those who try to terrorize
the population by killing them en masse. Big difference, IMHO.

That's still a very ambiguous situation vis-a-vis public support.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

There's less excuse for the non-Iraqis who have entered the country
in order to attack Americans and their assistants more conveniently,
however, and I suspect that much of the "insurgency" is in fact from
those people and is just terrorism. It was to be expected and I am
sure no one is surprised that Saudis, Jordanians, etc. are involved.

I'm not surprised either - and hope their actions build the resolve
of those who see who we're dealing with.

Mark Hickey Habanero Cycles http://www.habcycles.com Home of the
$695 ti frame

Tim McNamara said:

You know, one of the oddest things was Iraq's periodic refusals to
cooperate with the inspection process. It never made any sense,
especially in light of our spectacular finds of... nothing. I really
wonder if those refusals were local decisions, undertaken to prevent
not the UN from finding weapons but to prevent Hussein from finding
out he didn't have any...

I'd guess it was to prevent Iran and other states from finding out he
didn't have any and also to keep his own generals from being sure that
there weren't any weapons they didn't know about if they were thinking
of a coup.
The main threats to a dictator are generally either external invasion
from a neighboring state or an internal revolt. Having advanced weapons
systems is useful against the first threat but may give too much power
to the generals he puts in charge of them. OTOH, an effective rumor of
having WMD is effective against both. Any general will know that his
own forces don't have them but he can't be sure about all the other
generals.
Obviously he miscalculated the threat from the US - probably thought he
could hold things off through increased cooperation with the UN
inspectors but then Bush started to demand 'regime change' rather than
just open inspections.

Mark Hickey said:

...
Funny they beat up Rumsfield for saying almost exactly what Madeleine
Albright did about Iraq....

The Clinton administration’s criminal and immoral Iraq policy does not
in any way excuse the criminal and immoral Iraq policy of the Bush II
administration.

--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

G.T. said:

tcmedara said:

Tim McNamara said:

And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was
no unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq
posed any but the most far-fetched threat to the United States.
Saddam Hussein was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a
mosquito that the Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever
since the "ragged ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied
Clinton very hard to do what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough
not to make that mistake.

Patent revisionism.

Hmmm, something like this?

http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

Greg

Correct, patent revisionism. To argue that Rumsfeld and Bush were the only
ones citing the Iraqi WMD threat prior to the war is utterly false. It was
accepted on both sides of the aisle during both the Bush and Clinton
administrations. To suggest that it was just Rumsfeld's "obsession" that
drove the policy in the face of other views is revisionist. No one
questioned the Iraqi threat. What was questioned was how to deal with it,
particularly in light of the new security environment followint Sept 11th
2001. To play semantic games with the word "imminent" misses the point.
The Bush policy was and is based on the idea that we won't wait until a
threat is imminent. We did that with Al Qaeda and paid a price. They
weren't going to make the same mistake with another known enemy of the US.
No that argument doesn't fit well with the lefts simplistic Kennedy
sponsored "Bush lied, People Died" propopganda, but it is a bit closer to
reality. Why the left can't just disagree with the policy without ascribing
evil intent or malfeasence on the part of the administration is just silly.

Tom

Tim McNamara said:

Mark Hickey <[email hidden]> writes:
<snipped lots of quotes>
Every generation has its idiots, and the Clinton Administration had its
share. You seem to keep forgetting, Mark, that I didn't like Clinton
either. I disliked him less than I dislike GWB, to be sure, but I didn't
like him. He started out promising and then turned himself into one of
the most successful moderate Republican presidents in this century. I'm
a liberal. I'm not a Democrat. I've even been known to vote Republican
when I think the candidate is a good one.
...

When the Iron Curtain rusted out, communism didn't go the way of the
Dodo Bird. It went underground and is still alive today. This is why we
don't have a civil, two party system as we did during the Cold War.

--

Hey can't you guys leave the

Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc,rec.bicycles.tech

header alone so the response will appear in whichever of the two
newsgroups is read first and not in the other? Using an intelligent
newsreader it will not display previously read responses with the same
title even if in a different newsgroup (called cross-posting). Many
of us use such newsreaders. I know this is difficult because more
than a few contributors apparently don't understand the concept and
delete one of the groups.

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

tcmedara said:

G.T. said:

tcmedara said:

Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote:

>And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was
>no unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq
>posed any but the most far-fetched threat to the United States.
>Saddam Hussein was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a
>mosquito that the Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever
>since the "ragged ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied
>Clinton very hard to do what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough
>not to make that mistake.

Patent revisionism.

Hmmm, something like this?

http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

Greg

Correct, patent revisionism. To argue that Rumsfeld and Bush were the only
ones citing the Iraqi WMD threat prior to the war is utterly false. It was
accepted on both sides of the aisle during both the Bush and Clinton
administrations. To suggest that it was just Rumsfeld's "obsession" that
drove the policy in the face of other views is revisionist. No one
questioned the Iraqi threat. What was questioned was how to deal with it,
particularly in light of the new security environment followint Sept 11th
2001. To play semantic games with the word "imminent" misses the point.
The Bush policy was and is based on the idea that we won't wait until a
threat is imminent. We did that with Al Qaeda and paid a price. They
weren't going to make the same mistake with another known enemy of the US.
No that argument doesn't fit well with the lefts simplistic Kennedy
sponsored "Bush lied, People Died" propopganda, but it is a bit closer to
reality. Why the left can't just disagree with the policy without ascribing
evil intent or malfeasence on the part of the administration is just silly.

Former UNSCOM Chief Inspector Scott Ritter's position before the US
invasion was that Iraq had no significant amounts of useable chemical or
biological weapons, and that its nuclear weapons development program had
been mothballed. (None of the major US media outlets paid any attention,
as they were too busy cheerleading for war.) Subsequent events have
proven Mr. Ritter to be correct.

--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

In rec.bicycles.misc said:

Hey can't you guys leave the

Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc,rec.bicycles.tech

header alone so the response will appear in whichever of the two
newsgroups is read first and not in the other?

actually it's the Followup-To: header that most accurately determines which
group a reply appears in.

Quoted message said:

Using an intelligent
newsreader it will not display previously read responses with the same
title even if in a different newsgroup (called cross-posting). Many
of us use such newsreaders. I know this is difficult because more
than a few contributors apparently don't understand the concept and
delete one of the groups.

my newsreader (tin under solaris as set up by my ISP) will not allow me to
put more than one newsgroup in the followup header. so this response for
instance will appear in both and tech and misc but replies to it will only
appear in misc (my choice) *no matter which group you read it in* and will
will only carry the one group in the Newsgroups: header. the fact that your
newsreader acts as you describe is technically incorrect (it's not
honoring the Followup-To: header -- which is usually both groups -- by just
posting to the current group).

it's all whack, anyway. i suspect the Followup-To: header was mostly
invented to allow for clever alt.dev.null only referrals..
--
david reuteler
[email hidden]

David Reuteler said:

Quoted message said:

Hey can't you guys leave the

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc,rec.bicycles.tech

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

header alone so the response will appear in whichever of the two
newsgroups is read first and not in the other?

Quoted message said:

actually it's the Followup-To: header that most accurately determines which
group a reply appears in.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Using an intelligent newsreader it will not display previously read
responses with the same title even if in a different newsgroup
(called cross-posting). Many of us use such newsreaders. I know
this is difficult because more than a few contributors apparently
don't understand the concept and delete one of the groups.

Quoted message said:

My newsreader (tin under solaris as set up by my ISP) will not allow me to
put more than one newsgroup in the followup header. So this response for
instance will appear in both and tech and misc but replies to it will only
appear in misc (my choice) *no matter which group you read it in* and will
will only carry the one group in the Newsgroups: header. The fact that your
newsreader acts as you describe is technically incorrect (it's not
honoring the Followup-To: header -- which is usually both groups -- by just
posting to the current group).

This is being posted through tin and emacs and as you see, it is going
to both groups. Your reply evoked the warning that a followup would
go only to one newsgroup, to which I replied "I" or ignore, and here
you have it. Besides, I only edit the Newsgroups: line to contain
both and it works, in spite of the warnings that pop up. It can be done.

Quoted message said:

It's all whack, anyway. I suspect the Followup-To: header was mostly
invented to allow for clever alt.dev.null only referrals...

Good!

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

Tom Sherman said:

tcmedara said:

G.T. said:

tcmedara wrote:

>Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote:
>

... Former UNSCOM Chief Inspector Scott Ritter's position before the US
invasion was that Iraq had no significant amounts of useable chemical or
biological weapons, and that its nuclear weapons development program had
been mothballed. (None of the major US media outlets paid any attention,
as they were too busy cheerleading for war.) Subsequent events have
proven Mr. Ritter to be correct.
--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area
What happened to UNSCOM?
31 Oct 1998 Iraq announces that it will cease all forms of interaction
with UNSCOM and its Chairman and to halt all UNSCOM’s activities inside
Iraq, including monitoring. The Security Council, in a statement to the
press, unanimously condemn Iraq’s decision to cease all cooperation
with UNSCOM

http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/Chronology/chronologyframe.htm

Clear violation of UN SC Resolution 687. And many resolutions later,
Iraq is still in violation. The UN had plenty of legislative power but
no judicial or enforcement of its mandates. A paper tiger which Hussein
et al largely ignored. Shades of the League of Nations comes to mind.
Scott Ritter is just one of the problems with his placation to the Iraqi
subterfuge. Iraq was a state of UN violation recedvisim.

--