Setting the record straight

[Tiger Al 0]

Just for the record, since the record is in considerable peril. These are Orwellian days, my friends, as the Bush administration attempts to either shove the history of the second Gulf War down the memory hole or to rewrite it entirely. Keeping a firm grip on actual historical fact, all of it easily within our imperfect memories, is not that easy amid the swirling storms of misinformation, misremembering and misstatement. But since the war itself stands as a monument to what happens when we let ourselves get stampeded by a chorus of disinformation, let's draw the line right now.

According to the 500-man American team that spent hundreds of millions of dollars looking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, there aren't any and have not been any since 1991.

Both President Bush and Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, now claim Saddam Hussein provoked this war by refusing to allow United Nations weapons inspectors into his country. That is not true. Bush said Sunday: "I had no choice when I looked at the intelligence. ... The evidence we have discovered this far says we had no choice."

No, it doesn't. Last week, CIA director George Tenet said intelligence analysts never told the White House "that Iraq posed an imminent threat."

Let's start with the absurd quibble over the word "imminent." The word was, in fact, used by three administration spokesmen to describe the Iraqi threat, while Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld variously described it as "immediate," "urgent," "serious and growing," "terrible," "real and dangerous," "significant," "grave," "serious and mounting," "the unique and urgent threat," "no question of the threat," "most dangerous threat of our time," "a threat of unique urgency," "much graver than anybody could possibly have imagined," and so forth and so on. So, could we can that issue?

A second emerging thesis of defense by the administration in light of no weapons is, as David Kay said, "We were all wrong."

No, in fact, we weren't all wrong.

Bush said Sunday, "The international community thought he had weapons." Actually, the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency both repeatedly told the administration there was no evidence Iraq had WMD. Before the war, Rumsfeld not only claimed Iraq had WMD but that "we know where they are." U.N. inspectors began openly complaining that U.S. tips on WMD were "garbage upon garbage." Hans Blix, head of the U.N. inspections team, had 250 inspectors from 60 nations on the ground in Iraq, and the United States thwarted efforts to double the size of his team. You may recall that during this period, the administration repeatedly dismissed the United Nations as incompetent and irrelevant. But containment had worked.

Nor does the "everybody thought they had WMD" argument wash on the domestic front. Perhaps the administration thought peaceniks could be ignored, but you will recall that this was a war opposed by an extraordinary number of generals. Among them, Anthony Zinni, who has extensive experience in the Middle East, who said, "We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started." After listening to Paul Wolfowitz at a conference, Zinni said, "In other words, we are going to go to war over another intelligence failure." Give that man the Cassandra Award for being right in depressing circumstances.

Marine Gen. John J. Sheehan was equally blunt. Any serving general who got out of line, like Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, was openly dissed by the administration.

Suddenly, the administration is left with the only good reason there ever was for getting rid of Saddam Hussein in the first place -- he's a miserable s.o.b. You will recall that this is precisely the argument the administration rejected. Wolfowitz said that human rights violations by Saddam against his own people were not sufficient to justify our participation in his ouster.

Now, according to the president, Saddam Hussein is a "madman." Oh, come on. An s.o.b., yes, but crazy like a fox -- always has been. It wasn't even crazy of him to have invaded Kuwait, given that April Glaspie, the American ambassador at the time, told him, "We have no opinion on your border disputes with Kuwait."

For everyone who ever cared about human rights and longed for years to get rid of Saddam Hussein, this late-breaking humanitarianism on Bush's part is actually nauseating. All the Amnesty International types who risked their lives to report just how terrible Saddam's rule was always had one question about getting rid of him: What comes next?

I don't think there is any great mystery here about how this "mistake" -- such an inadequate word -- was made. For those seriously addicted to tragic irony, consider that the most likely Democratic nominee is now John Kerry, who first became known 33 years ago for asking, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

LINK

[AUloggerhead 2,507]

OMG. You quoted from a Molly Ivins column!

[Tiger Al 0]

OMG.  You quoted from a Molly Ivins column! 

OMG. Your only response is an ad hominem attack which is an indication of a bankrupt argument!

Come back again real soon!

[Tigermike 3,657]

OMG.  You quoted from a Molly Ivins column! 

OMG. Your only response is an ad hominem attack which is an indication of a bankrupt argument!

Come back again real soon!

And we have never seen you do that have we Al?

[Tiger Al 0]

OMG.  You quoted from a Molly Ivins column! 

OMG. Your only response is an ad hominem attack which is an indication of a bankrupt argument!

Come back again real soon!

And we have never seen you do that have we Al?

0-fer-2! Tigermike's argument files Chapter 13!

[Tigermike 3,657]

:headshake: :headshake:

[Tigermike 3,657]

No argument, just a question. If I am in Chapt 13 does that mean you are bankrupt?

[Tiger Al 0]

Tigermike, you struck out. Go sit down now and let someone else come to the plate. Next time up, remember to keep your eye on the ball!

[Tigermike 3,657]

OK Al, I was trying to be nice to you but I will go ahead and tell it like it is. Your entire article is Typical ranting from the left.

Do you feel better now?

[Tiger Al 0]

OK Al, I was trying to be nice to you but I will go ahead and tell it like it is. Your entire article is Typical ranting from the left.

Do you feel better now?

Four posts and you still haven't addressed the facts. "Typical ranting from the left" sounds cute (Is that Rush or Sean?) but it says nothing.

[DKW 86 7,867]

Molly Ivins? Al, you are better than this......

[Donutboy 0]

Molly Ivins? Al, you are better than this......

And THIS comes from someone known to quote Bill O'Reilly?? Face it guys, we ALL have our editorialists (Is that a word?) that we read religiously. Reacting as TigerMike did doesn't address the issue presented. I've yet to see a single conservative/Republican on this board answer the post. Two of you have responded and it's basically, Oh my God Al. You quoted Molly Ivins!! Let's have a little back and forth on the issue presented instead of the author.

[Tiger Al 0]

Molly Ivins? Al, you are better than this......

Boom, boom, boom...Another one bites the dust! Actually, though, an ad hominem is exactly what I expected from you, sir! Next you'll post some obscure Matt Sludge rant (LIE) about how Ivins was arrested for prostitution in the eighties. Developing...

[Donutboy 0]

Molly Ivins? Al, you are better than this......

Boom, boom, boom...Another one bites the dust! Actually, though, an ad hominem is exactly what I expected from you, sir! Next you'll post some obscure Matt Sludge rant (LIE) about how Ivins was arrested for prostitution in the eighties. Developing...

You know the routine around here Al, if you don't like the message, shoot the messenger!!

[Tiger Al 0]

It'll be fun to watch ol' Georgie do the Texas Two-Step when he starts getting grilled on this subject for real! Russert did a poor job on "Meet the Press" and Dubya was already stammering and stuttering. Uh, um, ah, uh...could you repeat the question?!?

[Tigermike 3,657]

Reacting as TigerMike did doesn't address the issue presented.

Let's get this straight Donuthole I was not responding to the article, merely to what Al said to Loggerhead.

Tiger Al

OMG. Your only response is an ad hominem attack which is an indication of a bankrupt argument!

To which I responded

And we have never seen you do that have we Al? 

And I still ask the question have we never seen you do that Al? If you have never done the exact same thing I will consider a retraction.

Donut

Two of you have responded and it's basically, Oh my God Al. You quoted Molly Ivins!! Let's have a little back and forth on the issue presented instead of the author.

Are you saying that you have never attacked the author of articles posted here? Hellsbells you did it in this thread. If you really want I can and will provide links for both of you.

Donut

Let's have a little back and forth on the issue presented instead of the author.

Good idea, are you willing to stick to that in the future?

[Tiger Al 0]

Mike, do you have any response/defense to the facts raised in the article or do you just take exception with its' author, Donutboy and me?

[Tigermike 3,657]

Mike, do you have any response/defense to the facts raised in the article or do you just take exception with its' author, Donutboy and me?

Here's a fact for you Al. When an article has an out and out lie in the second paragraph there is not much reason to go further is there? One could only expect either more lies or BS or both.

According to the 500-man American team that spent hundreds of millions of dollars looking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, there aren't any and have not been any since 1991.

Did Sodom destroy everything he had? The Clinton administration didn't think there were any WMD did they?

What I really get from the article is that MS. Ivins does not like President Bush. But what else is new from you and Donut. MS IVINS has described herself as a Bush-Hater

http://www.progressive.org/nov03/ivin1103.html

According to the 500-man American team that spent hundreds of millions of dollars looking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, there aren't any and have not been any since 1991.

Did Sodom destroy everything he had? The Clinton administration didn't think there were any WMD did they?

Remember this thread Al.

[Tiger Al 0]

There are two problems with what you said. First, she has quoted the team that was headed up by David Kay. As such, if you believe that there are, indeed, WMD's there, then you would be calling Kay the liar, right? Second, the quotes that were circulated from the Clinton administration were taken out of context. We've been through this before. I've posted the quotes in their full context and they are caveat statements. The other thing about them is that they were all made after the UN was withdrawn from Iraq. UNSCOM inspectors were providing intel to our government. It was the best source of info we had. When they left, we didn't know what was happening in Iraq.

Since that time, UNMOVIC had unfettered access to Iraq and found that the intel Bush was acting on was wrong. Sadly, Bush didn't want that to stop his plans for Iraq, so he had UNMOVIC pulled and launched his attack.

[AUloggerhead 2,507]

I didn't think expressing amazement that you would quote Ivins to be an ad hominem "attack." If I had called her a stupid Communist sympathizer, more useless than Al Gore and an idiot with a haircut that makes her look like Harpo Marx with a lobotomy -- then I could understand your justification for calling my post an ad hominem attack. But, I didn't. Apology accepted.

[Tiger Al 0]

Sure it is. Or, did you think she was so far above my intellectual level that you were amazed because I knew about her? Or, is she a very obscure writer and you were amazed because I found her? Or, is she a friend of yours and you were amazed because I quoted her article? If not, then ad hominem is the only logical conclusion I could come to when you said:

OMG. You quoted from a Molly Ivins column! 

I'll reserve apologies until you can clarify what you meant if it wasn't an implied ad hominem attack because she is a liberal writer.

BTW, can you comment on the facts in her article, or just her physical appearance?

[AUloggerhead 2,507]

I'll reserve apologies until you can clarify what you meant if it wasn't an implied ad hominem attack because she is a liberal writer.

BTW, can you comment on the facts in her article, or just her physical appearance?

No, my amazment that you would quote Ivins has nothing to do with her well-known political leanings. As Tigermike posted, she is an avowed Bush-hater. She's been writing her Bush-bashing opinion columns ever since he defeated Ivin's hero for Governor of Texas, Ma Richards.

I'm amazed you quoted Ivins because she's notorious for taking half-truths & innuendo and spinning them to support her feeble arguments -- and they all have a way of eventually coming back to bash Bush. Refute the "facts" in her column? I'm sorry but I don't consider her opinion pieces as being credible nor any of her "research" to be original or insightful. Btw, I'm a long time reader of Molly Ivins columns. I find them to be extremely theraputic because I always laugh uproariously after reading them.

P.S. I've written 3 letters to the Editor which were published in the Seattle Times. Two of them were in response to columns written by Ivins. After the 2nd one was published I decided I won't ever refute Ivins in that medium again -- I need a bigger challenge than shooting fish in a barrell.

[Tiger Al 0]

OK, then. Where is she wrong in THIS article? What are the half-truths and innuendo here? What did she write that isn't credible?

[DKW 86 7,867]

Molly Ivins? Al, you are better than this......

And THIS comes from someone known to quote Bill O'Reilly?? Face it guys, we ALL have our editorialists (Is that a word?) that we read religiously. Reacting as TigerMike did doesn't address the issue presented. I've yet to see a single conservative/Republican on this board answer the post. Two of you have responded and it's basically, Oh my God Al. You quoted Molly Ivins!! Let's have a little back and forth on the issue presented instead of the author.

I have never knowingly quoted bill O'Reilly,well maybe as humor, but never as a primary content link.

[DKW 86 7,867]

Molly Ivins is an Austin based Bush Hater for decades. She openly brags about how much she hates Bush. It is useless to argue with closed minded, narrow minded, hatred filled columinists.

Ivins is to the left as the Libertarians are to the right. Extremeists thjat desreve no rebuttals , only sympathy. Ivins starts lying as soon as she fires up the PC.