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And now you’ve come up with the absolutely lamest response to a reasoned and documented statement of fact in the brief but colorful history of the CC Parent’s Cafe!</p>
<p>Kluge, I had a post, which was tongue-in-cheek and less extreme than many of yours (like the last one) reported and so I am now hesitant. However, Tomadog and I have had a lovely, intelligent, respectful and (dare I say?) insightful private conversation. We do not, of course, agree, but it is possible for people of differing points of view to discuss rationally. How’s that for a concept? Never would have thought of it, would you?</p>
<p>It’s a shame you can’t conduct yourself in such a manner as Tomadog, then you’d be a party to a nice conversation as well. But since you are in the habit of throwing bombs and being rude, you can only be left out in the cold. More’s the pity for you.</p>
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In fact, all you’ve done since being asked to do so is make negative personal coments about people who would be interested in seeing such evidence, if it exists. What are we to deduce from that?</p>
<p>No, Kluge, that did not happen.</p>
<p>YOUR posts have been abusive and someone reported one of mine that was not even in the same ball park, so we took the discussion off the board. But feel continue to hurl insults because that’s what you do.</p>
<p>“You’ve still failed to present any evidence contradicting the report.”</p>
<p>Nope. I have refused to engage in a discussion with you. Big difference.</p>
<p>kluge, if you want to see some evidence contradicting the report, check the links in #123. You may discount the word of the #2 general of the Iraq air force and the captured Iraqi document, but it does constitute “evidence” that contradicts the ISG report and the burden now shifts to you to disprove that evidence.</p>
<p>The thing is, FundingFather, that the Report doesn’t say what some folks here and the author of the AP article tell us that it does, and the AP article blatantly misquotes the Report.</p>
<p>The Report makes clear in numerous ways that no WMDs were yet found, but that the Saddam style of governance ensured that no one outside of his inner circle would have known. The exact quote from the Report is: “His chain of command for WMD was optimized for his control rather than to ensure the participation of Iraqs normal political, administrative or military structures. Under this arrangement, the absence of information about WMD in routine structures and the Iraqi militarys order of battle would not mean it did not exist.”
The report also makes clear that the Oil for Food scandal provided Saddam with the financial resources to build a thriving WMD program to go along with the many and varied reasons why he was determined to do so. The bottom line for me (and I’ve given plenty of links and quotes privately) is that the Report is proof positive that if Saddam didn’t have WMD on a Tuesday in 2003 at 2:13 pm, he had the resources, will and ability to have them soon after.</p>
<p>The Report is also three years old in a very fluid situation, and people with common sense realize that in a war zone much can change in that time. Which brings me back to my position: that we don’t yet know what we don’t know and that no final conclusions can be drawn by people interested in knowing the truth. Of course, folks who are interested in making a political point have no interest in the truth.</p>
<p>Zoosermom,</p>
<p>I agree completely. What people who are critical of the “road taken” are missing is that we don’t know what would have happened had we pursued the road not taken. One thing that the report is quite adamant about is that the “road not taken” would have included Saddam with WMD in a not too long of a period of time. Almost certainly by now the road not taken would include a Saddam still in power with a fully reconstituted chemical and likely biological capability and would have been racing with Iran for a nuclear capability.</p>
<p>FundingFather, the prospect of an arms race between Saddam and the Mullahs makes my blood run cold. I sincerely don’t know what Saddam had at the snapshot in time of 2003 (and no one else does, either), but I respectfully submit that that specific piece of information is simply not important and that people fixated on that date are simply interested in scoring political points.</p>
<p>I am not interested in political points…only that wars started by civilized countries should be the result of being attacked first. While I abhored the loss of life in Lebanon, I thought it necessary then…and now. Israel faces an existential danger and threat every single day,a nd Hezbollah’s action across the board demanded a serious response.</p>
<p>Zoos, you know I think the threat of terrorism is real, here in the US as well. I defnitely don’t want that lunatic president of Iran with a bomb. I wouldn’t want Saddam with a bomb. But since when do we have the right to invade and destroy sovereign nations, when there has been no procovation? The “fear” of the weapon isn’t enough to predicate that type of response IMO.</p>
<p>^^Correct. We are supposed to be the good guys who defeat the aggressor nations. We are not supposed to be the aggressor nation ourselves. By invading Iraq, GWB made the US into the aggressor for the first time in any major conflict since the Mexican War in the 1840s.</p>
<p>A question: how many lives are you willing to sacrifice to adhere to the above principles? A million? Two million? In the 1930s the free world did everything possible to avoid conflict as well - the result was over 50 million dead. In today’s world of nuclear weapons, losses in the millions can happen in the blink of an eye. I wonder if that nightmare scenario ever plays out here if anyone will say, “Well, at least we weren’t the aggressor.”</p>
<p>Another question: when an aggressor nation is defeated and signs terms of surrender but then violates those terms, is the world supposed to just let them get away with it? Would enforcing those terms be viewed as an aggressive act?</p>
<p>“Zoos, you know I think the threat of terrorism is real, here in the US as well. I defnitely don’t want that lunatic president of Iran with a bomb. I wouldn’t want Saddam with a bomb. But since when do we have the right to invade and destroy sovereign nations, when there has been no procovation? The “fear” of the weapon isn’t enough to predicate that type of response IMO.” </p>
<p>You are more than entitled to your respectful and polite opinion and I don’t completely disagree. My point on this entire thread is very specifically that we don’t know what Saddam did or did not have. People who extrapolate from that or twist that (not you) are being dishonest and argumentative.</p>
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<p>A question: how many countries are you willing to invade, how many societies are you willing to rip apart, how much money can you afford to spend, and how many lives (both foreign and American) are you willing to destroy on the theory that one of those countries MIGHT do something bad some day?</p>
<p>The problem with pre-emptive action is that to have even a faint hope of success it must be founded on an honest assessment of ALL the facts rather than a selective view of only those things supporting your pet theory and what you wanted to do anyway. And you must also be prepared to deal with the fallout from your actions (i.e. clean up the mess you’ve made). So far, the current administration has been sorely lacking in both of these - hence, we have fallen far short of success - with no end in sight.</p>
<p>I saw an ACLU rep on tv the other night (I can’t remember which news show since I’m so addicted) talking about how the UK plot was uncovered. The ACLU guy said repeatedly that he didn’t choose to give up his freedom for safety and actually said “give me liberty or give me death.” The host asked him if other Americans had the right to choose to give up some level of freedom for safety and the ACLU guy said “no, they can’t impose their will on me” and the host asked “well, how can you impose your will on them?” No answer. I just thought that was an interesting exchange. What if most Americans wanted monitoring of telephone calls, bank info, and other “invasions of privacy” in order to gain some measure of safety? Does the NYT, et al., have the right to thwart the will of the people? Just curious.</p>
<p>“And you must also be prepared to deal with the fallout from your actions (i.e. clean up the mess you’ve made).”</p>
<p>Ummm, isn’t that what Bush IS doing? It’s the Democrats like John Kerry who said that Saddam MUST be disarmed and who couldn’t be more supportive of the war when he thought things were going well but then abandoned ship as soon as things got tough. That is the kind of leader that this country just can’t afford to have again.</p>
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<p>No, that is what he is trying but FAILING to do. His failure to clean up his mess started from earliest days of the invasion when he went in with a force large enough to defeat the Iraqi army but not large enough to keep the peace. Result: widespread destruction and looting followed by the insurgency taking root and getting organized. And it’s gone downhill from there…</p>
<p>The administration’s current exit plan: there is none. It’s just a case of more of the same ineffective policy and hoping for a better day tomorrow. Bush has already stated that it will be up to his successors and not him to get us out of this mess. Gee, thanks George.</p>
<p>FF, the anecdotes quoted in the fringe sources cited in post #123 are exacly the kind of goofy BS that the White House report on the failure of American Intelligence cited as examples of exalting unverifiable palaver into “intel” which can be tunnel-visioned into a belief that overcomes massive on-the-ground, real world evidence. I know you’ve read the 3/31/05 report (or been cited to it by your blogs) often enough to have stumbled across the descriptions of how wanting to believe misled the administration into ignoring sound and credible evidence in favor of anything - anything at all - which supported the predetermined reality. </p>
<p>How many times does reality have to hit you over the head before you’re willing to let go of the more comfortable fantasy? You’ve used the term “tinfoil hat brigade” to describe those who disagree with you before - have you checked your kitchen drawer recently?</p>
<p>Nope - no tinfoil adorns this head. I’ve always said that the presence/absence of WMD in Iraq was a non-issue. I’m just pointing out that there is evidence out there that contradicts the ISG report. To say, as some here have, that the case is closed on this issue is exactly the type of thinking that you described in your post. </p>
<p>I’ve never heard the Iraqi general in an interview. Perhaps he has no more credibility than Baghdad Bob; I don’t know and neither do you. I don’t know the veracity of the Iraqi document that describes the secretive convoy into Syria - and neither do you. However, for you to describe these sources as “fringe” without any additional information is exactly a case of “wanting to believe” your worldview so much that you have fallen into the same trap that the Silberman-Robb report talked about. </p>
<p>Once again, kluge, the irony of your post is clear for all to see but yourself.</p>