GM, that's strange, the NYT has been more than supportive of both the official invasion of Iraq and the present occupatoin [disagreeing only on occupation strategies, not occupation itself]. For your theory that the NYT is all out to undermine the Bush administration or the military you'd have to explain plenty of pieces of counterevidence. A newspaper that helped the Bush administration actively in its marketing strategy of pushing the belief in so-called "WMDs" in Iraq before the invasion is not one that is as determined to undermine the war as you would presumably believe.
And, of course surely a person who reads knows well that the position that it was only about oil was a minority view in the anti-war movement [for example, I defy you to find where Chomsky took the position you accord to 'the left']. Oil was one part of it, but surely not the only one. War was also critical in shoring up the support for Bush's domestic agenda at a time of declining support for his agendas and it remains so even with the losses sufffered in Iraq by now.

However, the denial that oil was part of the equation seems as ludicrous as the belief that it was the entire reason.

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 10:33 AM

Steve, if "oil" was only part of the equation, why can't WMD be PART of the equation too?

As to the NYTimes, from my POV, and that of many, many others, your reading of their "support" is way off base. Having said that, thanks for commenting.

Posted by GMRoper at May 31, 2005 10:44 AM

Golly.As I said earlier,you have acquired the patience of Job,or alternatively and more regrettably have a deep-seated problem with self punishment.

First actually reading an article in the NYT,knowing what you were almost guaranteed to get,and then taking the time to reply to a typical moonbat analysis of it.

You go, guy!!

Now let me add my two cents worth to this.What?? I should look at GM's previous post first ? Oh well,if you insist---- let's see now:

"use language and decorum that you would use in a church, synogogue, mosque or your grandmothers home".

Ooops.

Nevermind.

Posted by dougf at May 31, 2005 10:53 AM

Doug, I have to try to remember NOT to read your comments with a mouth full of coffee or diet coke.

;-)

Posted by GMRoper at May 31, 2005 11:25 AM

Good question GM, I thnk that's easy enough to answer, primarily evidence. Nothing in the behavior of the US before or after showed concern about the "WMD" scares. We were as non-chalant as possible about the possibility that these "WMDs" could be used against troops and really showed little concern about where they might have gone in the early aftermath.
On top of that, it was clear at the time that the "evidence' being propped up for "WMD" in Iraq was laughable and the only people who took it seriously were American politicians and journalists. The NYT, which you condemn so vociferously, was a critical part of pushing uncritically the WMD marketing stragegy.

Demonstrate how the NYT was not supportive of the official invasion. They downplayed protests against the war, had Judith Miler playing message transmitter for the WMD marketing campaign from the Whitehouse, and support the increase in troops being sent to Iraq. Am I missing something that you are not?

You can have a POV, that's fine, but I'm not seeing much evidence that the NYT didn't play an important role in helping develop support for the official invasion of Iraq. You're angry at the Times for not finding more vets saying that they would sign up now. That's fine, but it's not even close to evidence that the Times doesn't support empire or this present US occupation of Iraq. There is real and strong concern in the military upper echelons about declining recruiting numbers precisely because it will hurt the goals of empire building. Nothing the NYT wrote in that article is inconsistent with what is a real and strong sentiment within the military establishment. I would say, actually, that article you cite as being so hostile to the war is on the same par as Judith Miller's advertisements for war prior to the official invasion.

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 11:31 AM

GM, The concern about oil and nationalization has been a long-time concern of the US in Iraq, it's not only something that is not accurately characterised as 'never' existing, it's an old concern:

"In July 1958 an army faction led by Abdel Karim Qasim seized power in Iraq, executed the king and Nuri as-Said, and declared a republic to wide public acclaim. This was the first overthrow of a puppet regime in an oil-producing country. The new regime appealed to the popular anti-imperialist consciousness in its very first announcement: “With the aid of God Almighty and the support of the people and the armed services, we have liberated the country from the domination of a corrupt group which was installed by imperialism to lull the people.�

The United States and the U.K. immediately moved their troops to Lebanon and Jordan respectively in preparation to invade Iraq. Unfortunately for the United States, the deposed regime was so widely despised in Iraq that no force could be found to assist the American plan. Nevertheless, the United States delivered an ultimatum threatening intervention if the new regime did not respect its oil interests. The coup leaders for their part issued repeated declarations that these interests would in fact not be touched. Only then were American and British troops withdrawn. Thus Iraq is no stranger to the threat of imperialist invasion."

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 11:46 AM

roper...your canard that it was just a case of wrong intelligence, absolving the administratin of data mining, misleading use of ambiguous intelligence to sustain a foregone conclusion and deliberate deception has been (a) debunked so thoroughly its becoming the pro-Bush crowd's version of The Big Lie, repeated over and over like a mantra so as to cloak themselves from reality and responsibility or (b) called into serious question by some of the best-informed pro-war folks themselves. You can choose your version, but you can't simply dismiss facts. First of all, your argument about the aluminum tubes is, to put it simply, false. Rice state unambiguously that the tubes were for nuclear programs and, unless she's remarkably incompetent and simply ignored the expert opinion within the intelligence community, she knew this statement was false. The story of Doug Feith's office of "Special Plans" in the Pentagon also completely contradicts your faux-naive claims. Since this isn't the place to write a book, I'll cite two sources among pro-war types against you. One is the "Downing Street" memo prepared by an insider for Tony Blair's cabinet from July 2003:

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. (long snip)...
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. "

The other is anti-Saddam advocate Kenneth Pollack's post-war view, as quoted in Christian Science Monitor:
[Pollack's] most scathing criticism falls on the Bush Administration and, particularly, its tendency to misstate the facts of the case when trying to persuade the country to go to war. In his eyes, the Administration consistently engaged in "creative omission," overstating the imminence of the Iraqi threat, even though it had evidence to the contrary. "The President is responsible for serving the entire nation," Pollack writes. "Only the Administration has access to all the information available to various agencies of the US government – and withholding or downplaying some of that information for its own purposes is a betrayal of that responsibility."

These are just two bits of contrary evidence, among many. I quote these because they are from sources - inside the Blair government and Ken Pollack - who are about as far from the anti-war crowd as you could find. Your blithe dismissal of the idea that there is, at the least, a strong case that there was deliberate deception on the part of the political players involved, rather than simply "mistakes made" by a bumbling intelligence community is a continuation of the same-old same0old we've gotten from day one on your end of the debate over Iraq.

The best evidence is that the intelligence experts were not selling the President bad information that led him into wrong judgements about Saddam's weapons capacity, but that the key players, particularly around Cheney, decided early on to go after Saddam regardless of the evidence and sifted through whatever intelligence they could find to support a foregone conclusion, pushing the President and Tenet into the corner they already occupied.

Your snarky "fisking" of this issue is pretty thin soup. Embarassingly thin, I would say. And it's typical of the kind of stuff I find so exasperating here since it's seems based on reciting dogma, rather than at least sifting through the best evidence honestly and meeting serious arguments with something better than self-satisfied dismissals.

Posted by reg at May 31, 2005 11:59 AM

Thanks GM, for this thorough and well-deserved fisking. And thank you Steve, for reminding me that there are people even further out there than the NY Times, which has bent over backwards to undermine the war effort from the beginning.

Posted by Van Helsing at May 31, 2005 12:05 PM

GM [and VH], I just actually read the NYT article in full and found it starts out stating clearly that th bartender supported the Bush strategy very much. So much for no reference to a vet who agrees with your perspective. It also notes the support the troops signs, the sending of goodwill packages to the US troops in Iraq, etc. My impression is that you would prefer then that the Times, even though it has already done quite a bit to support the official invasion and present occupation, should not do an article on what the reporter found at the VFW in question.
VH, I'm not sure what you mean by 'further out there' than the NYT. After all, Judith Miller is already further out there, no? Seriously though, there really is little evidence the NYT is 'out there', they hire reporters like Judith Miller to help the building of empire. Why would a major capitalist organ of information dissemination do otherwise?

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 12:40 PM

Correction: The "Downing Street Memo" is from July 2002 - I mistyped that one. Important distinction, because it shows that insiders knew early on that a war plan was in place and intelligence was being sifted through to justify it rather than being subjected to objective analysis or presented honestly to the public.

Also, I have to echo steve, that the idea that The New York Times somehow tried to undermine the administration and the war rather than rather dutifully - if occasionally grudgingly around the edges - help them "catapault the propaganda", to quote your fearless leader.

More mantras, more mantras, more mantras...

I think that John Burns of the Times is one of the most honest and energetic reporters in Iraq and I have enormous respect for him, but it's clear that he totally supported the effort to take down Saddam and his occupation reporting is marked mostly by regret at how badly it's been handled on the ground and a sense of horror at the ensuing chao and violence. He is 100% with the Iraqi people. If he wasn't, he'd cover for the bungling of the occupation administrators and upper-echelon Pentagon types who bear at least a measure of responsibility for what the Iraqis are currently faced with. You can't have it every which way...claiming stuff like the groundswell in Lebanon, the developments among Palestinions after death of Arafat and the crumbs being handed out by Mubarak as great victories that would have been impossible without the war and avoid taking responsibility for the downside - a present reality that looks far worse, in terms of the prospects for pulling together a stable, peaceful Iraq, than anything the administration predicted or planned for. And the handling of the occupation is, at least in part, despite what they were being told by Generals about troop strength needed to secure the country - or at least the Generals who weren't already writing the first draft of their memoirs.

You had Wolfowitz testifying to a Congressional committee:"There is no history of ethnic strife in Iraq", and I'm supposed to believe that he's the representative of an honest, objective group of policy planners who were snookered by the CIA, while The New York Times is an anti-war outfit. Give me a break... What's scary listening to some of this stuff is that you folks actually appear to believe it.

Posted by reg at May 31, 2005 01:37 PM

Faulty intelligence, as regretable as it is, does not constitute a criminal act. I'm not sure that the full text of history has been revealed, by the way.

What exactly constitutes "weapons of mass destruction?" If your standard is "stockpiles of nuclear weapons," then you could win your argument. If on the other hand WMD could be defined as the capability to produce,deploy, and employ weapons of mass destruction then there could be a credible case made for the existence of WMD.

Why is it so convenient to forget that Hussein gassed hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Kurds and Shi'ite Iraqis? Don't tell me that didn't happen, I saw the photographic evidence. So we know that Hussein had the mindset to use such weapons. If Hussein lacked the capability to use such weapons against the US, did he have the capability to sell them to those who could?

Any reasonably intelligent person can formulate whatever arguments he or she wants in support of a political agenda. My own point of view is that we should with hold final judgment until AFTER the full history of what happened has been revealed to us. THEN we can form reasonable conclusions and hopefully, learn from any mistakes.

Our system of government is based on a level of trust that the people we've elected will act in our COLLECTIVE best interests. If you can support the government in that endeavor, that's great. If not, then I suppose you're just along for the ride -- just like I was along for the ride when Bill Clinton ignored every element of intelligence that suggested all was not well in River City.

Semper Fi

Posted by Mustang at May 31, 2005 03:02 PM

reg "roper...your canard..." and "Your snarky "fisking..." are precisely the types of juvenile ad hominem attacks I'm talking about. Now cut it out. Last warning.... state what ever you wish to state and do it in a respectful manner even if you don't respect either the ideas or the person with the ideas. You can put in what ever you believe, in any comment, but you will not violate my rules on my blog!

Posted by GMRoper at May 31, 2005 03:31 PM

The issue isn't "faulty intelligence" in my comment. Nor was the issue "gassing the Kurds"...we let that pass without any particular problem, just as Rumsfeld assisted Saddam's gassing Iranian troops when he went to Baghdad to play "let's make a deal" for Reagan.

You, mr. mustang are decidedly "unserious"...

Posted by reg at May 31, 2005 03:32 PM

And "moonbat" is reasoned discourse. Thanks for the last warning. I'm over and out...don't have time for this bull.

Posted by reg at May 31, 2005 03:33 PM

"Why is it so convenient to forget that Hussein gassed hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Kurds and Shi'ite Iraqis? "

You mean that is the reason we went to war? Because of a massacre that we supported that occurred a 2 decades ago? No wonder the Bush siblings and cousins aren't signing up to go to Iraq:

"As part of the Anfal campaign against the Kurds (February to September 1988), the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons extensively against its own civilian population. Between 50,000 and 186,000 Kurds were killed in these attacks, over 1,200 Kurdish villages were destroyed, and 300,000 Kurds were displaced....The Anfal campaign was carried out with the acquiescence of the West. Rather than condemn the massacres of Kurds, the United States escalated its support for Iraq. It joined in Iraq’s attacks on Iranian facilities, blowing up two Iranian oil rigs and destroying an Iranian frigate a month after the Halabja attack. Within two months, senior U.S. officials were encouraging corporate coordination through an Iraqi state-sponsored forum. The United States administration opposed, and eventually blocked, a U.S. Senate bill that cut off loans to Iraq. The United States approved exports to Iraq of items with dual civilian and military use at double the rate in the aftermath of Halabja as it did before 1988. Iraqi written guarantees about civilian use were accepted by the United States commerce department, which did not request licenses and reviews (as it did for many other countries). The Bush administration approved $695,000 worth of advanced data transmission devices the day before Iraq invaded Kuwait (Alan Simpson, MP & Dr. Glen Rangwala, “The Dishonest Case for War on Iraq,� Labour Against the War Counter-Dossier, September 2002)."

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 04:18 PM

"Our system of government is based on a level of trust that the people we've elected will act in our COLLECTIVE best interests. "

That about limits one's democratic particpation to pulling a lever every 4 years and then following orders.

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 04:19 PM

"And "moonbat" is reasoned discourse. Thanks for the last warning. I'm over and out...don't have time for this bull."

Actually, moonbat is a rather descriptive term. You would be free to call my thinking moonbatty if you wish; note in the rules for commenting that I allowed for some generally accepted terms.

That's the nice things about blogs and commenters. The Blogger can post his thoughts and desires and rules for comments and the commenters self select, both to comment, or not to comment.

Notice reg, I have never banned or deleted steve despite the very obvious differences of opinion on just about everything except the Red Sox?

Posted by GMRoper at May 31, 2005 05:19 PM

GM, my friend, EXCELLENT fisking! I wish I were so eloquent.

But, I do need to remind you (as if you need it) that the Barking Moonbats of the Extreme Left are not interested in verifiable facts. While they claim to be on high moral ground, they don't understand the reality of right and wrong.

For example, as you mentioned, they refuse to acknowledge that, in going to war with Hussein, President Bush was acting on information from several sources. These sources, especially when taken together, were deemed reliable. However, later they were proven wrong. Bush acted on bad intel, yes. But he did not lie!

I am so extraordinarily (oooooh, just missed shocking my mom....) TIRED of that idiotic meme.

But the most irritating, exacerbating, infuriating, nauseating, provoking, aggrivating and contemptable characteristic that I see from the Leftist Liberals is the refusal to accept a standard which applies equally to conservatives and liberals. They LOVE to change horses in mid-stream. Grrrr....

Anyway, friend, I'm going to scoot before I break the rules in your home. But please know that you did a great job with the fisk, and I enjoy reading your blog immensely. You have pertinant things to say, and you say them clearly and intelligently.

Keep up the fantastic work!

-- R'cat

Posted by Romeocat at May 31, 2005 05:43 PM

Moonbattery is rampant in the dark dank vestiges of idiotaria. hehehe. Notice I didn't swear. I think my grandma would laugh at the word "idiotaria"...

At any rate, as Mustang points out, we don't know the whole story. And I'm sure history will prove Bush was right. I don't even think it was a case of faulty intelligence; we just couldn't follow those trucks to Lebanon and dig up the WMD that's sitting in that trench in Bekaa. (Why we didn't, I'm not sure exactly.) Saddan paid them somewhere around $35 million to put it there, lol...

But we ARE telling the terrorists to leave Lebanon...

So I don't think whole thing has played out yet. And what would happen if we DID unearth the stockpiles of WMD that people say don't exist? What then?

We already discovered quite a bit of weapons, all over Iraq, including a Russian MiG, but I guess those discoveries are quickly dismissed in addition to anything that supports the US's position.

Leftists would much rather come to the rescue of the Socialist Baathists who tortured and killed Iraqis for 35 years.

Posted by Cao at May 31, 2005 06:30 PM

Mustang, Cao, Romeocat, thanks for your comments and support. The Wide Awakes truly are - wide awake.

Cheers

Posted by GMRoper at May 31, 2005 06:48 PM

"Your snarky "fisking" of this issue is pretty thin soup. Embarassingly thin, I would say. And it's typical of the kind of stuff I find so exasperating here since it's seems based on reciting dogma, rather than at least sifting through the best evidence honestly and meeting serious arguments with something better than self-satisfied dismissals."----Reg

=================================================

This is like whack-a-mole without the entertainment value.

Unlike GM.,I will go right to the bottom line so that Reg can grind his teeth right down to the gumline without reservation.

Let's say for your amusement that 'the Administration consistently engaged in "creative omission"'.Let's also say just to be sporting that they did this in order to present the best possible case for removing a nasty, brutish,murderous,useless and hostile tyrant in a very critical and dysfunctional world region.And further let's finally confess that ,YES,there was a desire to deep-six this backward thug in order to upset the ME applecart and "roll the dice" on the concept of a 'democratic/free'ME.
OK--- now we have said all that.Happy now ?

My reply

Posted by dougf at May 31, 2005 07:06 PM

Well, I respectfully disagree, GM. The arguments Reg presents are factually accurate, and totally ignored by R'Cat, who comes up with retorts like `he did not lie', and cutesy labels like `Barking Moonbats...' while offering no substantive arguments in rebuttal.
He did not lie? Well, okay, in the eye of the beholder, and all, but if you were to do a little serious reading on the subject, R'Cat, you WILL find that the OSP willfully inflated intel that supported
the administrations case for war, and deliberately (not a strong enough word) did everything they could to discredit the warnings of the Scott Ritters and intel sources that did not follow the administrations premises.

Cao at least attempts to show openmindedness, well, that is, he trys to make some kind of issue over `a Russian Mig' and `quite a bit of weapons'.

And, sorry, but when he makes statements like "Leftists would much rather come to the rescue of the Socialist Baathists who tortured and killed Iraqis for 35 years", I find it hard to take him seriously.

GM, you are correct in taking the commenter to task over the `thousands of mushroom clouds' rhetoric...but, then again, one of Bush's high statements of disinformation (or, propaganda, if you prefer, R'Cat) came while trying to drum up support for the invasion; `I just don't want to Americans waking up to a mushroom cloud over their country'.

In your desire to buy into the Bush justifications of the war in Iraq, guys, it seems more and more to take a suspension of disbelief. I'd say thats the direct opposite of `Wide Awake'.

Posted by jim hitchcock at May 31, 2005 07:25 PM

" However, later they were proven wrong. Bush acted on bad intel, yes. But he did not lie!"

That seems to be a rather trivial distinction at best, what is clear is that there was plenty of counter-evidence available and Bush and Blair [and Kerry for that matter] *chose* to ignore it. That's no different than Johnson ignoring the counterevidence in the process of using the Gulf of Tonking 'Incident' to rationalize war in Vietnam or Bush Sr.'s ignoring counterevidence available that showed plainly that Iraqi troops were *not* on the Saudi border poised for invasion or that the incubator babies stories used to sell war were also not true.
Now, that doesn't change that Bush is no different from other lying politicians, the recent revelations about lies about the Tillman death are clear enough evidence of that.

On the buried Russian Migs, hardly qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction, not even close. If they were a rationale for war, Bush and Cheney would have made mention of them time and time again as such. So much for "fisking".

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 07:29 PM

"I don't even think it was a case of faulty intelligence; we just couldn't follow those trucks to Lebanon and dig up the WMD that's sitting in that trench in Bekaa. (Why we didn't, I'm not sure exactly.)"

GM, *that* hardly constitutes being wide awake on the part of Cao. No serious analyst thinks that such a large amount of presumed 'WMDs" could have been transported without American knowledge. Then again, who knows, maybe we'll find out someday that there was actually real evidence that the incubators babies being thrown on the floor weren't a product of a Kuwaiti diplomat's daughter's imagination and a fantastic marketing campaign by Hill and Knowlton..[whom I had the chance once to teach English for in their Beijing bureau, but passed up].

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 07:33 PM

I swore off this madness...but I can't help myself. Roper considers the adjective "snarky" or the use of the noun "canard" to describe a stale argument as juvenile ad hominem, yet "moonbat" passes muster. And of course, the views of Tony Blair's cabinet or pro-war Ken Pollack are merely repetition of a "leftist meme". I don't care about "ad hominem" - I've been called everything in the book by right-wingers for over forty years, starting with "n***** lover" back in the early '60s, so it's not a big deal with me. But the hypocrisy of that reply by GMR is stunning. Unless it was a joke. If not, I guess calling it "hypocrisy" is in his lexicon juvenile ad hominem, so it's neatly self-cancelling in the world of the "Wide Awake". As for Cao, he's a sad fellow. The WMDs are hidden in the Bekaa Valley ???? We couldn't "follow the trucks" ? This stuff is truly...interesting. Perhaps Cao should contact David Kay and that other fellow who investigated all of this IMMEDIATELY, because he seems to have the goods to let Cheney off the hook. And GMR thanks the man for that brilliant contribution. As for the argument that "leftists have changed horses in midstream", it's truly amazing as an act of projection. Because the entire post-war justification of the war has been one very large horse changed in midstream. And anybody who talks about "leftists" coming to the aid of Saddam when he was killing Iraqis is so reality-challenged it makes me want to throw up when I read it. There are all kinds of disgusting folk with all kinds of disgusting, half-baked reasoning on the left, as there are on the right. But if you want to find a group of Americans who actually aided Saddam when he was committing war crimes, you can start in the Secretary of Defense's office.

You guys are truly a pathetic, self-congratulatory "faith-based" crew and this is an "interesting" little sandbox you've got going here.

There was, incidentally, not one word as to why Ken Pollack (who, guess what, knows more than you folks about this issue and had been arguing that Saddam was a danger for years) would claim that Bush dealt with the intelligence at hand in a way that was manipulative and irresponsible, or why Tony Blair's men thought the case against Saddam was "thin" at best. Not a word...

And to think that you've periodically expressed anger that I think you're hopelessly full of it.

Adieu...

Posted by reg at May 31, 2005 07:42 PM

I must be brief as my bride of nearly 25 years is anxiously waiting for me to join her in a trip to the store for invitations to our daughters high school graduation party.

So I say: Bush did what any responsible President would do in his position, he erred on the side of caution and the security of the American people.

Posted by too many steves at May 31, 2005 07:47 PM

toomanysteves, I don't see how one can believe that the 'errors' were on the side of 'caution'. Bush, no less than Kerry consciously refused to listen to the counterevidence and went out of his/their way to not allow them to be part of the discussion on the level of 'threat' that Iraq posed to Americans:

http://traprockpeace.org/KerryOffice101102/

"John Kerry had ample opportunities to discern the truth, before he voted for the war resolution in October, 2002 and during the build up to the invasion. He says that the Bush administration misled everyone. 156 of his colleagues in Congress would disagree; they voted against war. And, thousands of his constituents would disagree - they called his office or voted for his write-in opponent in November. After the deaths of between 5567 and 7240 civilians in Iraq as of this date (per the Iraq Body Count Project - http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ ) with almost daily shooting deaths of both US soldiers and Iraqi during the occupation (not to mention the thousands of Iraqis who will die due to destructions of infrastructure and health care systems, continuing violence and exposure to the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium residue left in Iraq from US and UK munitions), Senator Kerry speaks out.

He says was misled. Perhaps he did not understand what 156 colleagues and thousands of his constituents understood. Or, could a politican in his position have realized the truth and for political reasons went along, knowing that one could claim later - after things had started to go badly - that one had been misled, along with "every one of us."

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 08:24 PM

Again I can't help myself. I loved dougf's contribution. He's my boy. The shorter dougf: "Badges? we don't need no stinkin' badges!"

Thanks dougf, for speaking a somewhat deranged, but far more forthright version of your sides' "truth". No gnashing of teeth or grinding of gums...just a big grin.

(Oh...for your information, because I know it's hard for you deep thinkers to make these distinctions, Lenin isn't on my list of fine folks. You are more than welcome to emulate his approach to realpolitik. Your projects are likely to meet with the same long-range success and ultimately be as welcome among common folk caught in the cross-fire if founded on such noble premises. It's got nothing to do with me. Why you would bring him up as a point of reference when addressing a liberal such as myself is one of those bizarre questions that don't really need to be answered.
But again, thanks for taking off at least a few of the veils. It wasn't exactly a full lap dance, but that was some nice striptease.)

Posted by reg at May 31, 2005 08:33 PM

Chalabi visits his oil fields:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/international/middleeast/31chalabi.html

Posted by steve at May 31, 2005 08:59 PM

GM, Here's the deal. Since I respect you and your rules, I find that it impossible to comment in much detail on the absolutely (blank) inaccurate information rendered by your detractors. I find it near criminal that people with fairly large vocabularies and, possibly, academic degrees/advanced degrees can be so truly ignorant of world affairs. I've been reading and actually dealing with world affairs for some years and it would appear that very many have nearly no knowledge of the history of South East Asia/Middle East. I've no idea where some get their ideas, but despite what (at first look) appears to be ideas with some merit turns out to be intellectual inaccuracies, half-truths or out right falsehoods. I wonder if any who have embraced a particular stance, are too dug in pyschologically to alter their views when new evidence is presented that invalidates their arguements. Frankly, I am with Dr. Thomas Sowell, who mostly will just hit the delete key when he discovers he is dealing with ....whoops, I cannot say here.

Sir, Good on you for attempting to explain and clarify...not to mention, remind people of FACTS.

All the best and Semper Fidelis,

Tad

P.S. Can you imagine what a platoon of Marines would have to say about all this?

Posted by tad at May 31, 2005 09:44 PM

'The shorter dougf: "Badges? Badges?We don't need no stinkin' badges!"'

Posted by dougf at May 31, 2005 09:47 PM

Tad, a good place to start to actually develop an argument might be `See No Evil', by Robert Baer. Worth checking out.

Posted by jim hitchcock at June 1, 2005 12:41 AM

Since I'm unencumbered by any academic degrees whatsoever, I'll assume that tad's ruminations are directed at Kenneth Pollack and some of those high-falutin' folks who worked with Tony Blair. I'm glad to see that someone is coming up with some assertions as to why their views as stated are so counterfactual. I thought tad might present some "new evidence"...you know, the kind of thing that might stimulate some "rethinking of what we've been told", but why bother when dealing with folks such as myself and Kenneth Pollack, the long-time advocate of taking on Saddam, because we're just too dug in psychologically, clinging to our discredited theories, to be taken seriously. tad and the rest obviously have no such problems and are impervious to being stuck in the rut of stubbornly clinging to nostrums that "new evidence" shows might not be true. And, stupidly, I at least have failed to be swept away by the powerful explanations, clarifications, not to mention FACTS, regarding this matter that GMR has so compellingly presented in his fisking and subsequent comments.

As for what a platoon of marines might make of all this (yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, tad, you wily old sumbitch, 'cause that kind of invocation always nails an argument - even an argument that one hasn't much bothered to argue), well...there's this particular platoon of marines: http://tinyurl.com/4jkbc

dougf - thanks. At least I get where you're coming from...I had to look it up, but the badges line is actually from Treasure of Sierra Madre, "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges.
I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"
--Gold Hat, as played by Alfonso Bedoya. I think the more relevant version, regarding the good folks of the "cabal" is Jerry Orbach's as delivered on "Law and Order": "We don't need no stinking badges... I said, yeah, people need to see our badges."

Posted by reg at June 1, 2005 06:00 AM

Reg, as difficult as it may seem to you to believe, or anyone else to believe for that matter, I welcome your comments. My only gripe was the language. Your passion for your point of view stirs the political pot and makes argument interesting. I like people who like what I post; but I also like people who disagree with my POV.

Cheers
GM

Posted by GMRoper at June 1, 2005 07:05 AM

"dougf - thanks. At least I get where you're coming from...I had to look it up, but the badges line is actually from Treasure of Sierra Madre, "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges.
I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"
--Gold Hat, as played by Alfonso Bedoya. I think the more relevant version, regarding the good folks of the "cabal" is Jerry Orbach's as delivered on "Law and Order": "We don't need no stinking badges... I said, yeah, people need to see our badges"

Posted by dougf at June 1, 2005 08:45 AM

"I find that it impossible to comment in much detail on the absolutely (blank) inaccurate information rendered by your detractors."

That's an interesting assertion, I've yet to see any rebuttals of facts that I've used to rebut GM or others. But I do see constant assertions that that has occurred without any actual instances of refutation. Lots of assertions of 'we are the bestest most humanest empire ever ever ever', but little in the way of actual refutations of much of what I have provided in response to GM or others?
As for what Marines would say, why assume uniformity among them in terms of opinion?

Posted by steve at June 1, 2005 10:12 AM

I suggest you download this and watch it. This is what real atrocities are.

http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.844,filter.all/event_detail.asp

Posted by Cao at June 1, 2005 07:44 PM

I'm Back!!! I guess it would be less than appreciative ( GM I hope you appreciate a satirical euphemism when you see one) to not respond to GMRoper and thank him for illustrating the folly of my reasoning. We left of center folk can always use a little straightening out to help shore up the ever so tenuous tether we have on reality. That having been said, it would only be fair to grandstand a bit and offer my take on the critique offered by GM. The Times could just as easily be offered up in such as fashion as to be both right or left. One only has to slightly alter one's point of view. The "timing" issue seems trite in view of the proportion and significance of other issues regarding the war and the coverage thereof. I believe that in the "big picture" of things with respect to the slant of MSM and the war, coverage has been more along the line of enabling the advancement of the neocon agenda rather than holding their feet to the fire.
You move on to point out the triumph of the "elected government" when you point out the absurdity of my statement that the war is a failure of epic proportion. Surely you jest. If you were to simply substitute the word "puppet" for elected you would be utilizing fact in your "fisking" of me. The form of govenment in Iraq no more resembles an elected govenment than that of the government which preceeded it. Starting with Bremmer and continuing up to today one would be hard pressed to actually claim that there is any semblance of a truely elected representative government. Any power weileded by that government is implied rather than express. To hold that fact up as an indication of the success of the war borders on the arcane.
For a person who purports to have an appreciation for satirical hyperbole, I find it at odds that you attack my phrase of " a thousand mushroom clouds", stating that no one ever said that. Pehaps you can utilize some help in recalling the words of Condi Rice. That is what I am referring to. Perhaps you also fail to recall the presentation by Colin Powell to the United Nations General Assembly, replete with satellite photos of mobile rocket launchers, and I also recall the time frame of 15 or 45 minutes associated with Iraq's strike capability. And I know I didnt' mention it in my previous post, but what of the Downing Street Memo? It is my humble opinion that any reasonable (and honest)person would agree that to some degree it constitutes at least the question as to Bush having knowingly misled in an effort to bring us to war. You mention that people on my side of the discussion also believed that Saddam had WMDs and you mention thousands of body bags. Well, if you are being lied to by the president and he is forcing the intelligence community to cherry pick facts which can be assembled in an montage so as to indicate that he did in fact have WMDs, where do you go from there? Bush knew the facts, or should I say the lack thereof, whereas people of my inclination were presented the facts which were "fixed about the policy" rather than being privy to the facts which were being presented by the intelligence community. It is also well documented that persons inside the Bush administration were antithetically opposed to Bush's approach on this matter. But I don't suppose it would be a stretch to think that you would say something slanderous if I were to mention Clark.
To sarcasticly correct me with respect to the distinction between 911, 9-11, and 9/11 seems to indicate that you have a propensity to attack the messenger rather than the message. I'm fine on being held to task with respect to matters of substance, but feel it dilutes the strength of your arguement when you condescend over a miniscule semantic/grammatical issue.
I simply disagree with your contention that the intelligence community got it wrong. Wilson told them they had it wrong and we got the "16 words" anyhow. And it wasn't just Wilson. There were many that were telling Rumy and Bush that the evidence just wasn't there. I mentioned PNAC as evidence as to the predisposed propensity of this administration to go into Iraq. Richard Clark is one among others who have stated that the pervasive thrust from the very first Cabinet Meetings was to put the Iraq issue at the center of the foreign policy table.
With regard to the specifics of the numbers of War dead/ casualties, In my opinion, 1 is too many especially when the War is one which we were led into by deception. There is also evidence that the War Dead/ Casualties have been understated as well. For myself, it is the issue of lives lost in a war which was not necessary and the accurate accounting of the numbers is besides the point.
Claiming that the Abu Graib scandal was one which was investigated by the Military before it even became public and that the guilty have been brought to justice is outlandish. A few sacrifical scapegoats were/ are being offered up while those in high places responsible for creating a systemic problem through policy have gotten off scott free. Gonzalez memos and briefs on torture are dispicable in my opinion. Powell himself was against the tenor of the policy being drafted by the administration. Notice he is no longer around!
It was never about oil Mike, Never. Surely you jest. Oil had absolutely nothing to do with it. Pleeese! You have to not be capable of any honest self appraisal if you can make this statement. I will grant that Oil is not the primary motivation for the war. The expansion of Empire is at the heart of the reason for war. One need only look at the PNAC documents to see the rationale behind the war.It is in plain view for all to see. Have you ever read it? It isn't a secret although it would seem that it is with the way things are covered in the MSM.
I'm not exactly in bed with the way the Times goes about it's business either. Although the criteria by which my displeasure arises is certainly quite different than yours.
I have no problem adjusting my viewpoint, if presented with FACTS which indicate the necessity to do so. I must admit, I am in complete disagreement with your perception of the Facts. Incredibly, you can state something you hold out to be a fact and arrive at a conclusion which would seem to demonstrate that you are in fact, simply said, not in possession of the facts or have a propensity to fix the facts about your perception. Contempt prior to investigation was the way that Herbert Spencer put it. You might enjoy looking up what he had to say about that.

Posted by Mike Miller at June 1, 2005 09:37 PM

At best you're confused, the torture committed under Saddam's regime wasn't the reason for the official invasion of Iraq nor the present occupation. Indeed, similar acts of torture that are committed today in Uzbekistan are tolerated and supported with US military and financial aid.

Posted by steve at June 1, 2005 09:40 PM